


I kept running (for a soft place to fall)

by chromaticality



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hostage Situations, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, No Incest, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy Whump, Science Experiments, Strangulation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2020-04-06 17:56:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 53,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19067704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chromaticality/pseuds/chromaticality
Summary: He'd hoped they had given up. Really, he should have known better.The Handler thinks he's the solution to all her problems. Five thinks he'd like to turn the whole place into a slaughterhouse. But with Allison and Luther caught in the crossfire, Five has to cooperate with the Commission's plans until he can figure out a way to get everyone home.





	1. Chapter 1

It’s not that Five wasn’t relieved the apocalypse had been averted. The moon was whole, the sun was shining, the birds were making a goddamn racket. Chucking them all into the past had given them enough breathing room to lick their wounds and finally _think_ for a second. Dad hadn’t drilled strategy into them as much as, say, dodging bullets, but they could figure it out with enough time. So long as Five was there to lead them to the water, and to hold their heads under until they drank.

Honestly, ninety percent of the issue had been solved by convincing Vanya not to quit her meds cold fucking turkey like a moron. 

Now she was off touring in Europe somewhere with an orchestra, with a few Xanax on hand for bad days. She called home every weekend, and Five could admit it warmed even his cold, shriveled heart to hear how happy she was. Vanya had invited him to come with her, go see the sights. But she deserved a chance to find herself without her siblings in the picture.

Klaus and Ben were gallivanting around the city somewhere—and wasn’t that some sort of miracle? Five still had no idea how the math had worked out, bringing Ben back to the future with them. A wild intermingling of his and Klaus’ inexplicable powers, he suspected. He wasn’t going to go testing it. They seemed to be doing well. 

Diego was still around too, still playing Batman in his free time but in the process of getting certified for rescue diving. No better job for a guy who could breathe underwater. He and Luther still locked horns whenever they were in the same room, but no one was going to blow up planets over it.

Luther was still a barrel-chested strongman, but he wasn’t a circus freak anymore. He was living at the academy. Five wasn’t sure that was a totally healthy choice. No one asked him though, so he stayed out of it. Like Vanya, Luther should have a chance to make his own decisions. Allison flitted back and forth from Los Angeles or wherever she was shooting at any given time, bullying Luther out of the house.

They’d all met Claire. And that had been weird, so weird. She hadn’t seemed to know what to make of an uncle nearer to her age than her mom’s, and Five hadn’t known what to do either, was nearly afraid to even touch her. Because despite everything, Allison had managed to raise a normal kid. It was even more of a miracle than Ben. 

No, it’s not that he was unhappy about how things had turned out. Only, well, Hazel’s little pep talk was not nearly as helpful as the man probably thought. Five had no idea what to do with all the time on his hands. He didn’t have any room to talk about Luther’s unhealthy decisions, because he was also living at the academy, still in his childhood room. Nowhere else to go, really. Nowhere he wanted to go.

And still stuck in a kid’s body, because the math on that was completely fucked. That was part of the issue: even if he decided to go off on his own no one was going to rent an apartment to a minor. Allison would probably rent something out for him, if he asked, but again—nowhere he wanted to go.

How do you make a life after spending decades grubbing through the ashes of the dead, and then another decade of indiscriminate slaughter? Somehow, taking up pottery classes with the other retirees just didn’t hold any appeal.

So he skulked like some sort of foul-mouthed gremlin around the complex, harassing Luther, waiting for Vanya to call, avoiding visiting Dolores because he had nothing new to tell her. And because the store clerks were starting to give him the side-eye, a boy lurking around the women’s clothing department so often.

It was fine though. Everything was fine. In the first days back, he’d crashed hard and slept for ages after that final, tricky time jump. A sort of bone-deep weariness that he couldn’t shake. He had a vague memory of Mom sticking an IV in him when he couldn’t reliably wake up to eat. 

The exertion of the jump had been the trigger, but it was also a bit of a mental collapse, if he was being honest with himself. The sudden lack of direction after years of manic, unrelenting obsession. Klaus had been right, in some ways.

Still slept a lot these days, but now it was less of an exhaustion thing and more of a boredom thing. Which is why he currently sprawled on his bed, face smashed into a pillow, counting down the minutes and listening to the birds clamor outside the window. He’d promised Dolores to stop drinking so much, so he couldn’t even pass the time in a pleasant haze.

Also, Luther had thrown out all of Dad’s liquor, the prick.

An indeterminable amount of time passed and a light knock on the door startled Five out of the doze he’d slipped into. He snarled into his pillow and didn’t move. 

Another knock, and then Allison’s voice. Huh, he hadn’t known she was here today. “Five, get up. We’re going to the farmer’s market.” 

He grumbled something unkind that the fabric muffled. It was good of her to push Luther around, force him to rejoin the world, but Five had less charitable feelings when she tried to do the same to him. 

There was a beat, a moment where she waited for him to respond, then another light knock against the door. “Five,” and oh, she sounded dangerously pleasant, which was enough to make him detach his face from the pillow warily. “My dear brother, my precious sibling, if you don’t get out of bed I will come in there and _drag you out_.”

There was heavy thud, like she’d kicked the door. Damn, if she was this worked up already, that meant Luther had put up a fight about going. Five calculated about five seconds before she started breaking down the door, and then she really would drag him out.

“All right, all right,” he relented, pushing himself into a seated position. “Keep your skirt on, I’m coming.”

“Ten minutes,” she threatened, and stomped back down the hallway. Five felt a pang of pity for Claire. 

Oh well, he consoled himself as he tugged on his uniform. If it got her off his back, he could walk with her while she sniffed artisanal soaps, or whatever people did at farmer’s markets. He straightened his tie and there was a glint at the window. Fresh fruit, maybe, for Mom and Pogo and there was a glint at the mirror, a _glint and the birds were quiet, the hair raising on the back of his neck—_

He was jumping away a few feet before he even fully processed the thought and his window shattered a second later, a bullet slamming into mirror he’d been standing in front of, and he couldn’t do anything but breathe for a split second, because this was supposed to be over, he was supposed to be done.

But then more bullets were thudding into the wall, missing him by a hairsbreadth and Five forced himself to move, jump near the bed to pull the knife from under the mattress, then onto the roof where he took a split second to survey the attack.

Two men with sniper rifles on the adjacent roof, black combat gear, red gas masks, already shifting to aim at his new position. Five flickered behind them and sunk the knife into the gap between the gas mask and the combat gear, pushing past the snag of cartilage at the throat. His heart was still loud in his ears from the surprise, but this was familiar, easy, he felt awake for the first time in months.

The second one fell quickly, a quick jump past his gun and the slick knife rammed home, a splatter of blood catching him on the cheek. He smudged it away and caught his breath for a moment, moving away from the bodies to the edge of the roof. 

TempCorps, with those masks. Same type that had shown up at the theater. Five had mostly interacted with other temporal assassins; temp corps were a different beast all together. More like shock troops than anything, the bludgeon to the assassin’s scalpel. Management hardly ever approved corps usage. It was expensive, and more importantly it wasn’t discrete.

But corps weren’t scouts, they didn’t work in small numbers. There was no way these two were the only ones. Where were the rest?

A startled scream tore through the air from somewhere in the complex behind him, followed a moment later by the sounds of shattering glass and snapping wood off to his right. They’d found Allison and Luther, he realized, and jumped without thought because he couldn’t, he _couldn’t_ let them die again. 

Luther stood a slightly better chance of holding them off. Five found himself in Allison’s empty room and jumped again down the hall, following the sounds of a scuffle. He landed in the thick of it and had to duck the butt of a gun thrown at his face. 

“Five!” Allison shouted, back to the wall and half-concealed behind one of the corpsmen. She’d obviously rumored herself a friend. The quarters were too close to use guns, too much chance friendly fire, so a half-dozen combatants in the narrow hallway were less of a concern than one might think.

Well, they all had close-range weapons as well, but Five was better than they were. 

He killed one but had to jump away before retrieving the knife from his body, dodging a brutal looking nadziak and dropping to the floor to avoid getting his eyes taken out by a kujang. Which, wow, he’d last seen a kujang in the Majapahit empire, when he’d been sent to excise the princess Rashmi. Nearly gotten himself gutted by a guard he hadn’t noticed until almost too late. He wondered what era this guy had gotten recruited from.

No time for reminiscing though. He needed a weapon, so he jumped close and snagged a handgun from the backholster on the nadziak guy, crippling him with a quick shot to the foot and then finishing him off when he screamed and bent over. 

Four left. No, three, Allison had one rumored. Speaking of—“Allison, rumor them already!”

“I can’t, the helmets!” She shouted, and her puppet moved to block her as a corpsman with a trench knife advanced toward them. 

Soundproof with some sort of radio for internal communications, he considered, even as he backed away from Kujang, who really was good with that thing. He saw now the puppet’s mask had cracked open right along the temple, evidence that Allison hadn’t forgotten all of their childhood training. She always could throw a killer roundhouse.

Puppet and Trench were tangled together, scrabbling on the floor. Kujang was doing his level best to disembowel Five, and the last man with a curved dagger of some sort—a janbiya, maybe?—was trying to outflank him. Five was at a bad angle, couldn’t use the gun again without putting Allison in danger. He jumped as he twisted, used the wall as leverage to throw his weight against Janbiya.

Janbiya stumbled forward straight onto his friend’s blade, and Five jumped again to put Allison at his back and brought the gun back into play, the bullet going neatly through the center of his mask. Kujang and Janbiya fell in a gory tangle of limbs. He loved it when a plan came together.

Trench was restrained by the puppet, and a bullet took care of him. The puppet was gasping wetly and bleeding from a few stab wounds. He wouldn’t be of much use to Allison anymore, so Five put the poor man out of his misery.

“Holy shit,” Allison whispered in the ensuing silence. He took a moment to get his breath back under control and looked over at her, and his heart nearly stopped when he saw her holding her upper arm, blood spreading down the sleeve of her flowy white shirt.

“Fuck!” He jumped to her side, batting aside her hand even as she jumped in surprise. “You’re hurt, let me see—is this it? Anywhere else?”

“I’m alright Five, it’s really not bad. You’re covered in blood, Jesus.”

“It’s not mine,” he responded absently, pulling himself back. She was fine. Everything was fine, so there was no need to tunnel vision. “Listen, you need to find a place to hide.”

“What?” She exclaimed incredulously. “No, we’ve got to find Luther.”

“ _I’ve_ got to find Luther.” Five corrected. “You’ve got to find a place where these people can’t find you, because they’ll all be wearing those masks and that makes you useless to me.” 

Whoops, she didn’t like that. Five really had to start finding less awful ways to say things. Dolores always said he had a bit of a cruel streak. No time right now though, he couldn’t hear Luther fighting anymore. He jumped away before Allison had time to argue.

Allison had been to the south when he’d been on the roof, and Luther’s voice had sounded north-easterly. That put him…Five grimaced. That put him near Dad’s study, which meant he’d been moping over the moon rocks again.

He detoured to Mom’s charging station and grabbed her by the arm—in the peripheral he saw a dozen men raise their guns in surprise, but he jumped before anyone could get a shot off, dragging Mom down to the garden shed. It was always exhausting pulling someone else with him, but he immediately went to Pogo’s room and jumped him to the shed as well.

“Stay here,” he ordered them. Pogo nodded shakily, and Mom just smiled. “Don’t come out until one of us comes for you.”

And then he was gone again, because he could hear Luther now, the sounds of gunfire. He found Luther trapped behind Dad’s thick mahogany table and appeared next to him, relishing his surprised jolt. “Good morning, Number One,” he said agreeably, panting a bit as bullets thudded into the desk at their backs. 

“Five.” 

“Having fun?”

“These friends of yours?”

“Well, different department, you know how it goes.” He was definitely nearing his limit, and there were undoubtably still a couple dozen of the temp corps crawling around the house. He risked a peek over the desk and counted at least ten before the pot shots forced him back down again. “So hey, Mom and Pogo are locked in the shed, and Allison is hiding somewhere. Anyone else in the house right now?”

“No.”

Five sighed, relieved. “Okay, great. Here’s the plan. I can’t get you all the way there, but I’ll jump us out of here. You find Allison and get out of here. Go out the west side, shouldn’t be many soldiers over there.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll grab Mom and Pogo and meet you there.”

Luther had a thoughtful look on his face. “Think you can bring me to the side room on the second floor?”

It was far, but he probably had enough energy. “Sure, why there?”

“That’s where Mom stashed our old body armor.”

Oh, that would be helpful. Worth the extra energy loss. “Alright Number One,” he grabbed Luther’s arm, steeling himself for transporting someone this big. “I know you hate this but I’ll stab you if you throw up on me again.”

In a flash of blue they were gone, then they appeared in front of a wardrobe. Five staggered briefly, but straightened and schooled his face. Luther hadn’t seemed to notice, hunched over with his hand over his mouth. “I don’t know how you survived in space,” Five told him, throwing open the wardrobe and looking for something that would fit him.

“Space is just weightlessness,” Luther grumped when the nausea passed, pulling out the largest vest and throwing it on. “What you do is awful.”

“You’re a tender flower, Luther. I left Allison near her room, so go play Marco-Polo until either you find her or someone starts shooting at you.”

Luther shot him a foul look, but cracked open the door and, after a moment, slipped out into the hall.

Five finished buckling on his armor and contemplated the logistics of jumping all the way across the complex to the shed, then grabbing two people and jumping all the way to the east gate. No, he had to admit to himself, that wasn’t going to happen. Mom wasn’t organic and Pogo was pretty small, so it would actually be easier than jumping with Luther, but he was running on empty already. God, he missed the stamina of his older body.

But if he could get to them, and maybe sneak them through part of the grounds to get a little closer to the gate, he could probably manage a tandem jump then. 

Thirteen-year-old bodies were unfortunately not made for pullups. By the time he had opened the window and shimmied up on the roof, he could already hear footsteps in the hall. He drew his feet up over the edge just as the door opened and pushed down the instinct to jump, staying still and muffling the sound of his breath as someone approached the window.

There was a long, long moment, then the tramp of footsteps as people left the room and proceeded to the next one. But Five knew this game, and he kept still as the spring sun beat down on the roof, waiting, waiting—until at last he could hear one more set of boots leaving the room.

“This would be so much easier if Ben was here,” he commented tiredly to a nervous-looking pigeon a few feet away from him. The pigeon burbled at him. “Sure, he might die again. But at least I wouldn’t have to fight, like, a whole battalion by myself.”

He dragged himself to his knees and cautiously crawled up the slope of the roof, peering over. After a minute, he stood up and surveyed the completely empty rooftops surrounding him. “Huh. What do you think—completely normal and not suspicious at all?”

The pigeon cooed again and took flight in a hasty beat of feathers, and Five watched it go morosely. “Yeah, I didn’t think so either.”

Nothing to be done, this was still the best choice. It’s not a trap if you know it’s a trap. He crept along the edge of the roof, because at least he could drop down instead of being caught out in the center. 

He was making good headway, occasionally pausing when he heard noise from the rooms below him. He wished he’d had the foresight to stash Mom and Pogo in a more convenient place, but the shed was the first thing that had come to mind. It was where he’d used to target when he’d first been learning his powers.

He ducked around a satellite antenna and put his foot down on something that clicked. “Fuck,” he said softly, and then jumped desperately.

The explosion, hot and bright and loud, followed him through the jump and he bungled the landing, crashing onto the floor of the room directly beneath where he’d been on the roof, which now had a smoldering new skylight in it. 

He’d ended up in the entryway, where Luther had once been pinned by the falling chandelier. His clothes were smoking faintly and he was sore as hell, but he could feel all his fingers and toes, which was a relief. Less of a relief was the ring of, oh, twenty or so guns pointed in his face. 

Well, that was him screwed then. He hoped Luther and Allison had the good sense to run when they saw the explosion.

No point in holding back now. Five jumped to the outside of the ring and took two out in quick succession with the handgun, jumped, another three, snarling as two bullets slammed into his body armor with enough force to nearly knock him to the ground. Another tore through his unprotected arm, a long line of pain that he ignored. The gun was knocked out of his hand and he jumped, stole a knife, planted it into a throat. Jumped and—no, fizzled out, that was the end of it, the blue shine twisting uselessly around his fists.

He launched himself bodily at the nearest man, ready to go down fighting, ready for a bullet to rip through his brain, when a strangled shout from overhead froze him and he looked up, despair a quick rot in his stomach. There was Allison on the mezzanine, duct tape on her mouth and a ziptie on her wrists, tugged up against a person wearing a cartoonish wolf mask. There was a gun to her forehead.

“Look behind you,” ordered the wolf mask, voice pitched low and even. Five complied, still crouched over a corpsman. Luther, also on the second floor, hands raised and another gun held to his head. 

The other soldiers had drawn back, moving to cautiously ring him again, and when Five slowly stood the man he’d pinned scrambled away as well. The room was quiet, except for the slight crackle of embers falling from the roof. This was well done, he couldn’t help but admire. Even if he’d been able to jump right now, he couldn’t be in two places at once. Either Allison would die or Luther would. Or both, really, since he couldn’t do a damn thing with his powers tapped out.

And honestly, they could have killed him just now, were seconds away from doing it—why the last-minute sibling drama? They wanted something. He could use that.

“So now what?” Five demanded tensely. 

“Take off your flak jacket,” the wolf mask said, and something tickled at the back of Five’s memory. Just a hint of an accent. 

“No.”

“Do it or I’ll kill your sister, Agent Five.” There it was again, the quick flicker of extra vowels. Irish. 

Five mentally groaned, because the universe must _hate_ him. He barked out in a voice fit for a drill sergeant, “Patrick McGillivray, take off that stupid fucking mask!”

It was gratifying to watch the man startle and immediately reach for his mask before pausing, then sheepishly sliding it off. Five bristled as Allison flinched when the gun jostled against her temple. 

“God Almighty,” said McGillivray, “It’s damn eerie hearing that voice come out of a kid’s body.” He was a black-haired man with a touch of ruddiness on his cheeks. Average face, average height, average weight. Bit of a crooked nose. If Five hadn’t spent three months puttering around 17th century England with him, he never would have looked twice. 

Well, Harold Jenkins hadn’t looked like anything special either. Maybe psychopaths always looked normal.

“Been awhile, Paddy.” Five sneered, just to be a prick. 

“Yeah, _hi_ boss. Hear you’re in retirement, congrats.”

“Well, you try and try but sometimes you just can’t stay away from the office, you know?” He glanced around quickly. Ringed by men on the first floor, and more lining the railings of the second, all of them pointing a gun directly at him. “This is overkill. What are you doing here?”

“It’s really not, because you’re a damn monster.” McGillivray huffed. “Listen, no one has to die if you just take off your armor.” There was a moment, where they both glanced at the litter of corpses near Five’s feat. “No one important, anyway. The Handler wants to see you.”

Five laughed, because yeah, he bet she did. Hazel had said he’d killed her, but Five wasn’t surprised to hear she was alive, tricky as she was. He wouldn’t mind trying to make it stick this time.

“Ah, I know that look. You’re suddenly thinking real hard about turning Commission into a bloodbath. Well, can’t blame you, but can’t let you either. Which is why your siblings are coming with us too.”

That wiped the smile off Five’s face. It wasn’t the first time someone had tried using hostages to keep him in line, and normally he could let a hostage take the fall with only a flicker of guilt. But Allison and Luther were a different story.

“Yeah, I thought so. Who would have thought you’d have such a soft spot for people that aren’t mannequins?”

He huffed out a breath, feigning irritation to cover the panic broiling in his gut. He started tugging at the buckles of his body armor, his hands slick with blood. Allison’s body, covered in rubble. Luther’s stiff fingers around a glass eye. 

Pushing the memories down, he tossed the jacket aside. Allison garbled some sort of objection behind her gag, twisting against McGillivray’s grip, and he could practically feel Luther’s stymied frustration radiating at his back. 

Almost immediately something slammed into his left shoulder and he twisted with the impact, stumbling. Sticking out of the grey lines of his uniform was a brightly-feathered dart. His vision was blurring already, he noted distantly. 

“Don’t!” Luther shouted furiously, but a hazy glance backward revealed he hadn’t dared to move. 

What was the opposite of a Mexican standoff? Each person hamstrung by the one before and after. The figures on the mezzanine bobbled uncertainly. His body was numb but he stiffened his knees, staying upright out of sheer perversity. 

“Paddy,” he said flatly, “I’m going to tear you to pieces for this.”

“Boss, you’re like a hundred pounds right now—” There was motion, and Five could barely make out Allison being passed off to another corpsman. He swayed. “—and I know there was a truckload of tranqs in there. Please just pass out already.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“God, you’re awful. Every moment with you is awful. Fine, have it your way.”

McGillivray raised his hand and signaled. Before Five could think about bracing himself, two sharp impacts burst against his other shoulder and he was falling, falling, and was unconscious before he reached the ground.


	2. Chapter 2

Allison didn’t consider herself a weak person. She was trained, could defend herself physically and with her powers. She was ambitious, talented, determined. But watching her brother take out a dozen men in the space of fifteen minutes was forcing her to realize the differences between them in stark relief.

She could see, now, how Five had survived the apocalypse, and his time at the Commission. Not just the physical abilities or the creative use of his powers—it was his feral, vicious willingness to do whatever it took. An unflinching personality that demanded the universe conform to his wishes, or else. She envied that confidence, in some ways. She suspected she never would have managed in the same circumstances.

So it hurt, viscerally, to watch him give up. The dead-eyed, awful grief on his face when he saw that Allison had been captured was a stab to her heart. He had frozen in a way she’d never seen before, surrounded by assailants and spattered with blood, motionless as though someone had just flipped a switch on all his resolve.

It made her wonder what his face had looked like, when he’d found their bodies in the future.

He was somewhere behind her now, limp body tossed over the Irish man’s shoulder. Luther was ahead of her, as useless as she was against this many guns. There were several men in between them. Their captors obviously wanted to keep them as separated as possible as they marched them through the Academy halls.

They ended up in one of the old training rooms, just big enough to fit the whole crowd of them. Allison hadn’t been here in years. She could see in her mind’s eye little-Allison running miles on the treadmill, or wrapping her hands for a turn at a punching bag. She’d always hated that part, the chance of chipped nails and split knuckles.

In the center of the room was a long line of black briefcases. From Five’s stories, she knew what they were for. Dad always told them they needed to “control the field of engagement”—decide where the fight would happen and stick to it. When you know the lay of the land better than your enemy, you have an advantage. Any change in the land destroyed that advantage.

Well, the enemy had done its homework. They’d found her hiding spot in no time flat, and now they were changing the field. No matter how she wracked her brains, Allison couldn’t think of a way to prevent it. Sorry, Dad.

The wolf-mask guy, McGillivray, walked into her eyesight, Five still slung over his shoulder. Her brother was smeared with blood, and she could see from the tear along his jacket sleeve that some of it was even his. It was making a garish mess of McGillivray’s white button-down, who otherwise wouldn’t have looked out of place behind an office desk.

She had never wanted to rumor someone off a cliff so badly.

The guns at her back prodded her away, and she allowed herself to be herded to the far edge of the line of cases. The room was eerily silent, except for the tromp of boots as the soldiers gathered around. Luther was across from her. They hadn’t bothered to gag him, or even tie his hands.

They hadn’t needed to. He’d come looking for her, but she’d already been found. Luther hadn’t dared do anything when they had a gun against her head. The shame of being the weak point turned her stomach.

Or maybe they knew just about any restraints would be useless against him. The soundproof masks were too convenient to be luck; they’d planned for the Academy’s abilities. Not for the first time, Allison regretted that her power relied on her voice.

Allison wished now that she’d asked Five more about his time at the Commission. He’d told them the bare bones, but he’d certainly never mentioned Patrick McGillivray, who seemed to know him so well.  The Handler was a depressingly familiar name, though.

The group finished gathering, and a handful stepped forward, approaching the briefcases. Their masks swiveled toward McGillivray, waiting.

He was glancing around, obviously doing some sort of mental tally as he repositioned Five’s body over his shoulder. “We’re missing a few,” he said critically. “And in the end it was _my_ bomb that dropped the wee bastard into the thick of it. Made a real holy show of yourselves, I gotta say.”

“Well,” Luther said suddenly, making Allison startle. A slightly smug expression flickered across his face. “We’ve taken down their type before.”

McGillivray eyed him disinterestedly. “I hear  __you were hiding behind a table until your brother came to save your arse, so you should probably shut your gob.”

Luther flushed and Allison flinched. It really was embarrassing how poorly they’d fared, even considering the surprise attack. Honestly, Dad had to be rolling in his grave.

“Let’s get out of here before he wakes up,” he said, jostling Five on his shoulder again and turning back to the soldiers. “Count of three.”

In unison, those next to the briefcases knelt and did something complex-looking. A second’s pause, and then they popped open the cases and light spilled out, so bright she had to close her eyes. There was a spinning sensation, familiar and yet somehow different than jumping with Five, and she knew they were gone.

 

 

 

 

 

Someone was stroking his hair. Five was stuck in a tired old dream about the apocalypse, one he’d had so many times that even he knew it wasn’t real. The bitter heat and wind blasted his face. Rubble cut into his bare feet. He was starving, tired, missing his supplies and Delores.

In one direction, an irradiated pit that once must have held a power plant. In real life, he’d run away as fast as he could as soon as he’d realized what he was stumbling toward, and waited anxiously for signs of radiation poisoning. In the other direction, the shambling, moaning forms of his siblings’ corpses. Even knowing it wasn’t real, it made his breath come fast. He could smell their rot, the charcoal of their bones. All this was normal, horrible in a familiar way.

The hand in his hair was new, and it made his skin crawl.

“Five,” someone was saying, “Time to wake up.”

He thoroughly agreed. The less time spent on this the better, before they caught up to him or forced him into the pit. He was trying to wake up, but something was weighing him down. Forced lassitude drowning his mind, keeping his eyelids closed.

“So lazy in your retirement! Don’t keep me waiting.”

A crack of pain and Five was catapulted into confused wakefulness, cheek burning and head tossed to the side from the force of the blow. His vision was hazy, his body like an overcooked noodle. Was he drunk again? He’d promised Delores… But someone had hit him, he was pretty sure. He was laying on a hard surface, cold against his back.

“There’s those pretty peepers,” a woman’s voice cooed. With great effort Five brought his head back to center and blinked until his vision cleared a bit. When he could see properly, his eyes widened.

The Handler.

Pure adrenaline shot through him and he flung it into a jump that dragged on his stamina. Why was he already running on empty?! Five needed to be on the top of his game if the Handler was here, what was she _doing_ here—

He materialized unsteadily a few feet away, all he could manage at the moment. There was a guard in arm’s reach who shouted as Five managed to steal his gun. He pulled the trigger and the guard went down in a spray of red. Spun and grit his teeth as the world tilted alarmingly, squeezing off a poorly-aimed shot at the Handler.

She was ducking hastily behind another guard. There were quite a few, he noticed dizzily, littered around the white room and all pointing weapons at him. Maybe a dozen. He could do it, probably, if he weren’t so ridiculously tired. Half-hidden behind her panicked-looking meat shield, the Handler was yelling something. It took a moment for the meaning of the words to pierce into his hazy brain.

“—you moron, do you _want_ them to die?”

Who, the guards? Why would he care—but no, there was a commotion on the far side of the room and he forced his eyes to focus. Allison and Luther, both with pistols held to their heads. “Five,” Luther sounded anxious, eyes darting between him and Allison, “Are you all right?”

Oh. The pit of his stomach dropped out and he let the gun slide from his hand. It clattered loudly on the floor as he raised both arms in the air. “I forgot,” he told the Handler as she peered from behind the guard. “My bad.”

The guard gave a visible sigh of relief as the Handler stepped out from behind him, patting her hair into place. She looked mostly the same as ever, coiffed and done up as if she were expected at a party, the grenade scar largely hidden with makeup. The only difference seemed to be that she now had long bangs curled artfully over her forehead.

She smoothed out her dress fastidiously and he waited, hands high. The large room was completely white, decorated only by a computer terminal and the metal table he’d been laying on. And the red smear of the man he’d killed.

  
He was deeply aware of Allison and Luther in the corner, guns still pressed to their heads. The guards looked twitchy and nervous. He kept himself very, very still.

“Well,” the Handler said after a long pause. “You always do know how to keep things exciting. Did you really have to kill poor Hartford? He was only a few days from retirement himself.”

Five scoffed. “Don’t pretend you actually know his name.”

“Oh, you bore. Take all the fun out of it.” She walked closer to him, heels clicking loudly on the tiles. He dropped his arms and felt distinctly as though he were being stalked by some great cat. The room was still wobbly on the edges but he was recovering fast, now that he was upright.  
She moved so quick he barely saw it coming, hand lashing out. His head whipped to the side, cheek burning again.

“Stop!” Luther shouted furiously, outraged. As though he had any sort of command here. Five loved his family, he really did, but sometimes…

“Luther, don’t make a fuss,” he muttered. Five carefully worked the soreness from his jaw, grateful he hadn’t fallen despite the lingering dizziness. Making sure his expression was smooth, he straightened to look at The Handler ruefully. “Was that for what’s-his-name?”

“You’ve got a little something—” She gestured at her own cheek, and he absently wiped the back of his hand against his face. It came away with a small bloodstain. Must have caught him with her nail. “No, honestly I just felt like it.”

 _Bitch _,__ he thought to himself.

“Don’t touch him,” Luther growled, shifting as though he was thinking about getting up. The guards’ trigger fingers twitched and Allison made a muffled noise.

  
“Keep quiet,” Five and the Handler snapped simultaneously. The combined weight of their glares seemed to quell his brother a little. He frowned thunderously but settled back against the wall.

Five didn’t have time to think about his siblings. The heavy steel door on the far end of the room cracked open with a loud click. Through the small gap he could make out a peering brown eye.

“Is it safe to come in now?” McGillivray asked.

The Handler rolled her eyes. Five sympathized; Paddy could be a cowardly little shit when he wasn’t busy being a psychopath. “Yes, I think the interesting bit is over with. Bring the good doctor in with you. Five—” She gestured to the metal table, “If you’re done murdering all my subordinates, please take a seat.”

Doctor? He supposed, in a certain light, this could look like a doctor’s office. Or maybe more of a surgical room, it had that sort of sterility to it. McGillivray shouldered his way into the room, followed by an elderly man carrying a leather medical bag. Five allowed the Handler to steer him with an over-familiar hand against his back toward the table. It was tall enough that he had to hop up a bit to sit on it, which rankled.

He glanced over his shoulder at Luther and Allison, both looking furious. That wasn’t ideal, being angry always made them stupid. “No matter what, don’t _move_.” He hissed at them, holding eye contact until they nodded reluctantly.

Facing front, he could still see them out of the corner of his vision, but just barely. He’d just have to trust that his siblings wouldn’t be complete morons. No way to really keep an eye on them, or even check if the guards slipped up to give him an opportunity. The TempCorps were supposed to be well-trained, though. A mistake this early in the game seemed unlikely.

He tried to focus and put them out of his mind. A doctor was a strange addition to their little party. Somehow he didn’t think he was here to patch up the arm wound he’d gotten at the end of the fight back at the mansion, which ached now but seemed scabbed over. Between that and the spatters of gore from those he’d killed, he had to look frightful—but the doctor wasn’t exactly rushing over to check for injuries.

“Boss, don’t look so nervous.” Paddy said with faux-concern. He reached out to ruffle Five’s hair like a child, undeterred when he snarled and batted his hand away. “Think of it like a checkup. The doctor’s just going to give you a little shot.”

“Jacket off, Five.” The Handler ordered, holding out a hand imperiously. He shrugged out of his bloody uniform blazer and handed it off to her, leaving him in his shirt and cardigan. “Doctor Heimann has been with the Commission for a long time. A very important person for us. You’re quite lucky to meet him.”

“That so?” Five asked, eyeing him. He was puttering around at the computer terminal. Seemed a little doddery, if you asked him.

She hooked a finger into the tear along his sleeve and tugged sharply, ripping the fabric open wide, and affecting a moue at the sight of his injury. “He’s quite brilliant. Smarter than you or I, no doubt. Doctor Heimann invented our wonderful little briefcases, amongst other things.”

Surprised, Five inspected the doctor more closely, who was ignoring all of them. He still looked like nothing more than a white-haired retiree. Five could relate to that, he supposed. That is, until he pulled from his bag a rather intimidating-looking injector that looked more like a harpoon than a needle. “A shot, huh,” He said acerbically, looking back to McGillivray.

“You might feel a pinch,” he said with a grin.

“What’s in it?”

The Handler shrugged gracefully. “Something like a tracker.”

“My previous one wasn’t quite so large.”

“Well, this one’s special. Tracker, leash, and microscope all in one. Had to be bigger to fit it all in, you see.”

“Microscope? Why—”

“Arm,” Doctor Heimann demanded suddenly, addressing them all for the first time.

The Handler grabbed his arm and held back the torn fabric, ignoring Five’s displeasure at being manhandled. Her grip was firm, almost bruising. The doctor approached them, wielding the injector, and Five steeled himself as it was set against his bicep. The Handler tightened her grip further, and Heimann pulled the trigger.

“Fuck!” Five swore, flinching hard. It burned all the way down to the bone, bad as a stab wound. The entry-point was bleeding freely, and Heimann wrapped a bit of gauze over it before turning away. His eyes were completely indifferent.

His arm was released and he grabbed at it instinctively, trying to soothe the ache. The doctor went back to his computer. A hunt-and-peck typist, Five noted with amusement. “Telematics and microscopy functioning,” he announced after a moment. “Test the limiters.”

The Handler moved to the far wall, placing a hand on it. “Five, this wall marks the boundaries of the complex. Try teleporting…three feet past it?” The doctor nodded in agreement. “All right, three feet. Give it a go.”

He hesitated and jerked a thumb in the direction of Allison and Luther. “What about them?”

“What? Oh.” She considered them for a moment, as if she’d forgotten about them. “If you make it past the wall, you have fifteen seconds to pop back into the room before I shoot them. Deal?”

With a shrug, he visualized and jumped. The familiar blue twist of space washed over him, a nanosecond’s pause. What happened next was a mix between running face-first into a wall and being electrocuted. Space spat him back out and his muscles spasmed wildly. McGillivray had to grab his shirt before he convulsed himself right off the table, biting back a groan.

“Goody, it worked.”

“Limiters seem functional.” Heimann looked him in the eyes for the first time. “Please describe the experience.”

Five sneered to cover how shaken he was. Time jumping had always been a crapshoot, but spatial jumps had never failed him like this. Now, even if the guards did slip up and he could get to Luther and Allison, the probability of getting them out of here just plummeted. “Like being tased,” he said bluntly. “What the hell is this all for?”

Infuriatingly, the doctor ignored him again and turned back to the computer. Five rolled his eyes and turned to the Handler. “You’re normally good for a monologue, care to chime in?”

She gave him a small smile that implied she’d like to rip his throat out. He smiled right back until she relented. “What’s the difference between you and a briefcase?”

“That’s a crappy start to a riddle.”

“Nevertheless, it’s one upper management would like answered.” He gestured impatiently for her to continue. “Another question: why don’t we use the TempCorps for everything? Why do we need the two-man corrections teams?”

“It’s not discreet,” he said slowly, trying to figure out where she was going with this. “Too many time travelers means too much attention, which risks changing the timeline.”

“Partially, yes.” She started pacing, heels tapping rhythmically. “But sometimes the gains would outweigh the risks, and we still choose not to. After all, it wouldn’t matter much if the general public were aware of us if the world would still end, but we still only sent a unit to deal with you at the theater. Why would you say that is?”

“A sense of fair play,” he offered, and she gave the idea the laugh it deserved. “No, I suppose not. There must be a limit to the number of people you can send to the same time.”

“Ding ding,” she sang. “Got it in one, you smart cookie. What do you know about string theory?”

“All of it. But let’s keep it simple for the rest of the class.”

“Cheers, boss.” McGillivray said happily.

“Then imagine space-time as a…oh, a knitted scarf. All the bosons and fermions and p-branes forming the yarn, the strings. Now normally once a scarf is knitted, the shape is firm. The yarn doesn’t go wandering about and suddenly become a hat, you follow?”

“Of course.”

“Well, with time travel we need the yarn to wander a bit. We want one stitch to move a few inches up the line, make cozy with another stitch, and then move back. Matter and energy getting shoved into places it shouldn’t be, then getting snatched out again. That’s what the briefcases are for, snipping out bits of spacetime to make a little room for us to slip in.”

“Ah,” Five caught on. “And when it gets manipulated too often, the scarf becomes a hat.”

“Or it gets too stretched out and falls apart completely.”

“So you send small teams, keep the effect minimal, and then send the TempCorps in if nothing else works.”

The Handler spread her hands open. “Just so.”

“What’s the limit?”

“Depends on the strength of the surrounding stitches. Nowhereville, unimportant time? Maybe a hundred. But make a big enough alteration and suddenly you can’t send more than a handful within ten years of the event without risk.”

Five frowned, mulling that over. “You were able to send quite a few soldiers after us.”

“We weighed the risk. Bit of a last-ditch effort, you see. But now we’re back to the riddle: what’s the difference between you and a briefcase?”

“There shouldn’t be one.”

“And yet, your time travel escapades didn’t affect the other stitches.”

“What?”

“There’s no weakening of spacetime when you travel sans briefcase, not even a little. All the quantum bits are left just the way they were.”

Well wasn’t _that_ interesting. Something to do with decoherance? He knew his powers were related to the idea of superposition and geodesics. Honestly jumping was just a form of probability wave. Maybe the briefcases were messing with the Pauli exclusion principal.

  
He’d never really been able to take a crack at the briefcases while he’d been employed at the Commission—too much danger of getting caught. Observations had provided some insight, but given half the chance he’d like to pick Heimann’s brain. It was a math problem that promised to be stunning in scale.

No, that wasn’t the point right now, Five reminded himself reluctantly. “And I guess that’s what the ‘microscope’ portion of the tracker is all about? Quantum microscope, I assume.”

“That’s right. There are a few in the ceiling tiles too, but we need to see what makes you tick.”

Behind him, he could hear Luther shifting around. It almost made him smile. Luther always fidgeted during lessons he didn’t understand, when they were kids. He wasn’t surprised to hear his brother speak up impatiently. “Uh, what’s the point here? I like quantum physics as much as the next person—”

“Liar,” murmured Five under his breath.

“—but I don’t really get what you’re trying to do.”

The Handler looked irritated, but Five just shrugged, turning a bit so he could see Luther and Allison again. Allison had a look in her eye that she’d already caught on and didn’t like it one bit. “They break time when they use the briefcases,” he simplified patiently, “So they can’t use them too much. If they figure out my powers, they can send as many people as they want, as many times as they want, again and again until they get it right. They want a second try at causing the apocalypse.”


	3. Chapter 3

Satisfied by whatever he was doing with the computer, Heimann finally ordered Five to stand on a specific tile near the center of the room. The Handler and McGillivray retreated out of the way, along with all the remaining guards. Five looked up and thought he could make out a small discrepancy on the white ceiling above him. Another quantum microscope, no doubt.

  
“We’ll begin testing spatial teleportation,” the doctor announced. “Move eight feet directly west from your current position.”

  
Five jumped with a flash of blue and reappeared in the designated spot. His shoulders slumped slightly with relief; he’d half-expected the implant to tase him again.  
“Again, back to the initial position.” He jumped. “Again.”

  
How irritating. He hadn’t had someone ordering him around like this since he was thirteen the first time around. Actually, Heimann reminded him a lot of Dad, now that he thought about it. The eyes were the same, the indifference. Five had always had the impression Dad saw them less as people and more as lab mice.He jumped again, but he could already feel himself running low. He hadn’t really recovered yet from the last fight. The tranqs had knocked him out long enough to rebuild some of his stamina, but not all of it.

  
“Good. There were reports of teleporting with another person. Let’s get some preliminary data for that.”

“Oh Patrick, how kind of you to volunteer!” The Handler said brightly, patting his shoulder. McGillivray made a face like he’d bitten into a lemon, but it was obvious he didn’t dare object. That’s what he got for refusing to be in the room when Five woke up, he thought smugly.

“Don’t look so nervous, Paddy.” he goaded, grinning like a shark.

McGillivray scowled. “Boss, you’d better keep all my bits in order. If this goes arseways, your family will pay the difference.”

Five scoffed. “Moron, it doesn’t work like that.” He snagged McGillivray’s arm, took a breath, and pulled them both into the jump. They materialized on the correct tile and he staggered. McGillivray clapped a hand over his mouth and gave an abortive gag, trying not to throw up.

“Congratulations Luther,” Five said dryly, turning to look at him. “You’re not the only one who can’t stomach it.”

Luther crossed his arms. “I told you it’s awful.”

“Allison never had a problem with it.” She was rolling her eyes at them, obviously thinking this was the worst time for them to have this argument. “Klaus thinks it _tickles_. You and Paddy are just wimps.”

“It varies?” Heimann interrupted, looking keen. Five suddenly regretted speaking at all. “Again. You—” He gestured at random to one of the soldiers in the room. “—go stand with them. Take your headgear off.”

The soldier did as he was told, tucking his mask under his arm. He was a swarthy man with curly hair and a strong jawline. He had the face of a man who intended to face the firing squad bravely. McGillivray gave him a friendly whack on the back. “Bad luck, buddy.”

“We all die someday,” he said stoically, in heavily-accented English.

Five took a breath and grabbed the soldier’s proffered arm, only to be stopped by Heimann again. “Both of them,” he corrected mildly, indicating McGillivray.

He paused. Better to be forthright or conceal weakness, in this case? If he told them, it might be taken as some sort of defiance, and his siblings would be in danger. If he didn’t tell them…well, it would become obvious soon enough, and voluntarily giving up information could be seen as cooperation. “Tandem jumping is hard,” he finally said. “And taking more than one person is worse. I probably won’t be able to jump again for a while after this. The Handler can tell you, I can’t do it forever.”

“Yes, we have that report. However, past documentation indicates you should be able to teleport for some time still, even considering the additional strain.”

“I used up a lot of energy back at the academy. It takes a while to recover completely.

“How long?”

“If I’m tapped out, it normally takes about a half-hour to manage a spatial jump again. But it can take up to eight to be back at full strength. Faster if I sleep and eat.”

“You’ve tested this?”

Five kept his face smooth. Dad had determined all of this by his ninth birthday, via grueling training sessions. “It’s been tested.”

The doctor typed laboriously, transcribing the information. “Interesting. Please proceed teleporting with two people.”

Five sighed and put a hand on both the soldier and McGillivray. He pulled on his powers and could tell by the amount of effort it took that he really was at his limit, but the portal popped open obediently and they jumped eight feet to the east. His head was buzzing with exhaustion as they reappeared, though he still had the presence of mind to back out of the way before McGillivray started emptying his guts onto the floor.

Heimann observed him impartially until he straightened, miserably wiping his mouth on his sleeve, then addressed the soldier. “Your experience?”

“Maybe like…outside during thunderstorm. A charge that lifts the hair.”

“Any dizziness, nausea?’

“No.”

“Interesting,” he said again. “Please attempt an unaccompanied spatial jump.”

“I just told you—” Five protested.

“I am aware.” Heimann said sharply, and Five shut his mouth. The guy really did sound just like Dad, the old bastard. This hadn’t been fun the first time around.  
McGillivray and the soldier moved away from him. He pulled on his powers, not surprised at all when they failed to respond. The flicker of blue light around his hands was weak. It felt somewhat like biting into aluminum foil, uncomfortable without veering into true pain. He shrugged and let the power ebb from him. “Like I said.”

“Do it again, and hold it.”

Five grit his teeth and pulled, pulled, pulled. The unfulfilled energy made his hands shake and his blood rush in his ears. Finally Heimann indicated he could stop and Five cut it off, panting.

“Well, doctor?” The Handler asked curiously. “Any ideas?”

“Yes,” Heimann replied, though Five wasn’t sure exactly what they were talking about. “I will be able to fabricate something in the lab, I think. We’ll resume tests in a few hours. Put him on a sedative and nutrient drip. I want him functional when I’m ready to begin again.”

Suddenly McGillivray was grasping Five’s arm, trying to hustle him toward the door. Two guards flanked them, and another two moving into formation ahead. It’s a move straight out of the handbook, fast movement and a demonstration of muscle. Designed to bewilder and intimidate the mark. Five could remember showing McGillivray how to do it, actually. The alarms went off in his head—he was being taken away from Luther and Allison. “Fuck off,” he snapped, twisting neatly out of the hold and planting his feet firmly. “I’ve cooperated, but those two stay in my line of sight or that stops right now.”

“Dear Five,” The Handler smiled patronizingly, coming over to stand in front of him. She was too close, it made her height loom over him. He had to crane his neck to glare. “You’re not really holding any cards right now.”

“Separate us, and I’ll assume they’re dead.” He said, serious as the grave. It was something she’d pull, given half the chance. “And then there won’t be anything holding me back.”

Her smile fell and they stared each other down. Long moments passed and Five didn’t blink. This was non-negotiable. If they got separated, the probability of rescuing his siblings dropped to nil.

Finally, she broke the tension with a laugh. “Oh, all right,” she said airily, as though it were nothing of consequence. “We’ll stick you in the holding cells side by side, if that makes you happy!”

“Very.” Five dead-panned. “Paddy, keep your friends in front of us and I won’t murder you.”

“Not really a concern right now Boss. You’re all tuckered out.”

It was probably a bad idea, but some things a person’s pride just couldn’t bear. Five lunged toward him, stopping just short of making contact. McGillivray yelped and backpeddled out of reach, nearly tripping over his own feet as he tried to put distance between them. The guards hastily swung their guns around and Five gave him a contemptuous look. “I might look like a kid, but I haven’t forgotten anything. I can kill at least a couple without my powers, and I’ll make sure you’re one of them.”

McGillivray’s face twisted into an ugly expression. “You little bastard,” he hissed, face red with embarrassment.

“That’s enough!” The Handler interrupted in a faux-cheery voice, clapping her hands sharply. “Five, it’s really not nice to antagonize your partner like that. You should apologize.”

He rolled his eyes, but clasped his hands behind him and straightened his shoulders, looking for all the world like a contrite (if bloody) schoolboy. “Sorry Paddy,” he said, diabetes-sweet. He could hear Luther and Allison sniggering, and The Handler covered her mouth to hide a titter. He’d probably pay for that later, but it was worth it.

McGillivray’s jaw flexed as if he were grinding his teeth, but he just moved to grab Five’s arm again, rough about it. “Get those two going,” he barked out the order, and the soldiers prodded Allison and Luther onto their feet.

With his siblings safely in sight, Five obediently allowed himself to be dragged out of the room and through a twisting warren of hallways dotted irregularly with doors. They walked for several minutes without seeing another person. He wasn’t sure if that meant they’d cleared the area during prisoner transport, or if there just wasn’t anyone else around.

Finally they were directed through a doorway, McGillivray shoving him through it. Inside were two holding cells with thick steel bars, separated by a path about six feet across. One was barren, stripped down to the concrete floor. The other contained a metal table just like the one from the first room. Five wasn’t surprised when he was propelled toward that room, while Allison and Luther were herded into the other.

Exhaustion was starting to dog at him. Pushing himself to his limits twice in such a short time, coupled with the stress of the situation. When the soldiers produced a couple fluid-filled bags and started setting up an IV, he was half tempted to tell them not to bother. Not that anyone was asking his opinion.

“All right, all right,” said Luther as the guards forced them to sit in the center of their cell, side by side. Allison folded up her legs to her chest. Five made eye contact with her, trying to check in on how she was doing. He wondered if being voiceless like this again was bringing back bad memories. But no, she seemed fine, though she grimaced at him unhappily behind the duct tape. Guards were still ringing them, guns at ready.

McGillivray took advantage of his distraction and pushed him again, sending him tripping into the table. Five sighed and took a seat. “I should have made sure you were dead.” He commented idly, rolling up his sleeve to bare his uninjured arm.

McGillivray barked out a humorless laugh. “You made a good try of it, leaving me bleeding out in that sheugh.” Someone handed him the needle and he tested the drip rate. “You know, it’s only been a year since then, for me. How many for you?”

“Four, I think.” He could barely even remember what they’d been doing at the time. 17th century England—oh, the Gunpowder Plot, and a few other assassinations along the way. It was a period that required a lot of little corrections to keep things on track; they’d had to spend more time there than any other job he’d been on. “How’d you get back?”

“Handler came by and patched me up. Awful mean of you to leave a newbie behind like that, Boss. You could be a little nicer.”

“You could be less of a psychopath,” Five drawled, not bothering to wince when McGillivray jabbed the needle into the crook of his arm and taped it down. At least it wasn’t as big as the tracker injection.

He jiggled the line to make sure the flow was still good, looking venomous. “I never did anything to you.”

“I’m sure that’s great comfort to all those dead little girls.” When he’d heard the rumors of a serial killer, he’d originally written it off as nothing to do with him. It wasn’t until near the end that he put two and two together, had gone off to find Paddy crouched over her, his hands around her throat. The stinking little backwater village, her blond hair and blue eyes wide at the sun.

The sedative was hitting him like a truck and he blinked torpidly. “Should have made sure you were dead.” He repeated, feeling a surprising amount of sadness about the memory. He’d been more disgusted than anything else, at the time. He wondered what her name had been.

“Yeah, probably.” McGillivray, sounding abruptly cheerful about it. He put a heavy hand on his shoulder and Five allowed himself to be pressed flat. A handcuff went around each wrist and ankle, shackling him to the legs of the table. “You screwed up. And now, when this is all done and over with…” he leaned close enough Five could feel his breath, “I get to be the one who kills you.”

“That won’t happen,” Luther interjected, startling them both. “Your toy soldiers are going to make a mistake some time, and then I’ll bring this whole place down on your head.” Allison hummed quietly in agreement. They were sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, watching McGillivray like hawks past the legs of their guards.

McGillivray rolled his eyes. “They might have fucked up a bit with the boss, but TempCorp’s good enough to hold the likes of you forever.”

“You won’t touch Five. I’ll kill you first.” Luther insisted, and Five groaned inwardly. No better way to make someone do something than to tell them they couldn’t do it.

For his part, McGillivray looked delighted, showing a bit of dimple. He snagged a hand in Five’s hair and shook his head lightly, just to prove he could. The room swam a bit. “Boss, you never told me your brother was such an idiot. I mean, you never told me about any of them—always assumed you’d been grown in a lab somewhere.”

“My burden to bear,” he said glibly, hoping Luther would get the point and _shut up_ already.

But no. “Get your hand off him!”

“Luther, calm down—"

“You do understand your position here, right? You’re just a guarantee of good behavior. You know,” he said thoughtfully, letting Five go and taking the gun from his holster. “We don’t really need two of you now that things are under control. Might shut you up right now.” He pointed the gun at Luther, then let it slide over to Allison. “Or her. Always did like killing girls better.”

 _Goddamn it_ , Five thought regretfully, because threatening Allison was a great way to make Luther do something stupid.

There was a moment of stillness, then an explosion of action. Luther sprang to his feet and quickly moved in front of Allison. He reached out and grabbed one of the guards by the mask before he could bring his gun up, swinging him around like a human flail. Two of the other guards were knocked to the ground, the others retreated hastily and brought their guns up.

If this kept up someone really was going to get shot. “Luther, stop!” Five shouted, somewhat confused why they hadn’t already opened. Standing orders not to unless absolutely necessary, maybe. Luther kept advancing on the remaining guards, using the man in his hands as a shield. Five had to take a precious second to think through the drug haze. “Luther—Number One! Zugzwang protocol, do you remember that one?!” That got his attention. Dad’s lessons always did.

Well, Zugzwang protocol normally meant a move changing a winning stance to a losing one, and he couldn’t say they had winning stance right now. But the way the other two were eyeing him, they probably thought Five had a plan. Well, no point in disappointing them, they could believe what they liked as long as they stopped making the situation worse.

“All right,” Luther finally said doubtfully. He put the guard back on the ground and patted his shoulder with a huge hand, nearly buckling his knees before he backed away. Luther sat down next to Allison again, who was looking exasperated. “No harm done, right?”

“Strong bastard, isn’t he?” McGillivray muttered furiously, finger still tight on the trigger of his gun, looking like he might shoot one of them anyway.

Time to calm the situation down a little. “Paddy, just—” _leave my idiot brother alone_ , he was going to say, but McGillivray whirled on him, snarling.

His arm shot out to grab Five by the throat. “Stop fucking calling me that,” he snapped, and gripped hard. Caught off guard, Five choked, a sharp clang echoing through the cell as he his the end of his cuffs, instinctively trying to get his hands up in defense. His powers swirled uselessly around his fists before petering out. “You know I hate it, you little asshole. You think you can act like we’re still in London? Think I won’t bite back now?”

He bore down harder, sneering. Five could feel the bruises swelling up under his fingers, struggling futilely to breathe. “You’re a bit older than my normal, but God if I haven’t been dreaming of this. Stay still or I’ll just shoot him,” he threatened. McGillivray was blocking his view, but Luther must have been standing up again. “Are you getting your positions yet?! Keep causing trouble and your little brother pays the price.”

Black spots were dotting his vision, his heart rabbiting wildly in panic. It was getting hard to think and he tugged weakly against the cuffs again.

“I get it,” Luther was saying, as though from a great distance. “I get it, you’ve made your point, let him breathe!”

His grip tightened, throttling Five until he was a moment from passing out, then abruptly released. Five finally inhaled, coughing hard. His throat felt awful but the air was sweet, and he sucked in great gasping breaths of it. His blood roared in his ears and he closed his eyes until the spots cleared. He spared a moment to contemplate how poorly this was all going. Honestly, if someone had told him this morning how things were going to play out, he would have just put a bullet in himself. The Handler was one thing, but this was just insult to injury.

“Howya doin’, Boss?”

Smug bastard. “Dandy,” he harshed out, voice a wreck.

“Grand. I may have gotten a wee bit excited. She’ll put me in the ground if she doesn’t get her answers before I have my fun, you know.”

Five didn’t bother replying, opening his eyes to seek out his siblings. Allison looked horrified, eyes swimming with tears and grasping at Luther’s arm with her bound hands. He gave them a tired smile.

“You’re looking knackered. Won’t be too long before the doctor’s ready, better get some shuteye.” McGillivray adjusted the IV again, increasing the flow. He wasn’t wrong, Five was very ready to pass out for a while. “Don’t cause the nice soldiers any more trouble, boys and girls. They’ve been told to be nice, but everyone has their limits.”

With that he swept out of the room. Five slumped boneless against the table. What a mess this was.

“Five.”

“Yes, Number One?”

Luther hesitated and Five nearly fell asleep before he spoke next. “I’m sorry. God, I’m sorry.”

Oh. Five eyed him; he did look eat alive with guilt, and Allison was still upset. “Don’t be,” he croaked out. “This has nothing to do with you two.”

“I…he strangled you. Because of me.”

“No. Well, yes.” He forced himself to gather his thoughts and resist the sedation. The soldiers in the room were settling into their positions after the excitement, guns at ready. Four in each cell. “But I embarrassed him, back there. And he’s on a revenge trip. It was always going to happen, he just used you as an excuse. Maybe stop antagonizing him, though.” He added ruefully, then regretted it when Luther’s face twisted up again. Change the subject. “Allison, you doing all right?”

She hummed in assent behind the tape, then seemed to realize something. She brought her hands down and tapped her nails rapidly against the hard floor. Short, long, short short—morse code, he recognized, _is this safe_?

Five waited to see if any of the soldiers objected, but no one moved. He highly doubted they could even hear them, with the masks on. Preventative measure against rumors, even if she took the tape off. There were probably listening devices in the room though. “Yeah, seems fine.”

_Five I’m so sorry, are you okay?_

“Fine,” He lied. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

_Got caught._

“Don’t be stupid, they planned for both of you. The Commission doesn’t play fair.” His eyes were drooping despite his best efforts. “Look, both of you. Just remember the zugzwang protocol.” Don’t make any moves because they’re all bad options, wait for the enemy to screw up. What if the enemy doesn’t screw up, Dad? What then?

He could practically see Dad, adjusting his monocle in disappointment. Being in zugzwang meant you’d made serious errors in the fight. Zugzwang meant you couldn’t rely on yourself, only hope for the incompetence of others.

His eyes had closed again without his permission. But Dad, what if they’re not incompetent, what then? The monocle flashed. Then you lose.


	4. Chapter 4

Luther missed being a kid. Things were simple back then—the numbers meant something, even if the others never really respected it the way he did. Dad showed them how to act, told them what to say with the press, scheduled their lives from morning to night. To be good, to be successful, all you had to do was what you were told. It was easy.

Now he had so many decisions to make each day. When to get up. What to eat. How to fill the long, empty hours, and then do it all again the next day. Allison had encouraged him to get some sort of job, maybe with NASA as a lecturer or trainer, but…well, it’s not like he went to the moon because he liked space. It was just one more thing Dad told him to do. And so he did it, obedient as a dog.

He hated that part about himself. What kind of leader was obedient? He couldn’t lead the team like that, letting others dictate his every move. And then, seemingly all at once, no one needed a leader at all. They were all leading their lives without him. He didn’t really want Dad back anymore, not really. He liked to think he wasn’t that pathetic. Following Dad had led him to hurt Vanya. Hurt all of his siblings in some ways, letting them down at every turn. The shame of it tormented him at night.

And he never learned, did he? Here he was, trying to play hero again and now it was Five getting hurt for it. The powerlessness grated on him, that he couldn’t do anything. Zugzwang protocol—sure, he remembered. He remembered it meant sit on your ass and don’t do anything, because you’ve caused enough trouble already and you can’t do anything right.

Allison was a warm pressure against his side. They’d scooted so that their backs were against the walls, and none of the soldiers had objected so long as they moved slow enough. Back at the academy, he’d found her surrounded and on her knees, arm wrenched behind her and tape already over her mouth. He’d rushed forward and they’d dislocated her shoulder, the pop echoing through the hallway with her muffled scream. Someone put a gun to her head.

He’d surrendered immediately, in a way that would have made Dad spit with rage. Training always said to attack, to use the moment of surprise to dominate the enemy. But it was Allison, in pain and scared. He couldn’t risk it. She was his best friend.

“What do you think Dad would tell us to do?” He asked quietly, shifting on the hard floor. Allison must be even stiffer; they’d popped her arm back in when he surrendered, but it must still ache like anything. He’d tried taking the tape off her face earlier, but a sudden brandishing of guns had dissuaded them.

_Would have let me die,_ she tapped out. He flinched. She wasn’t wrong, but it was still hard to think about Dad that way. He’d had time to reconcile the hero-worship with reality, but his first instinct was still to trust him, believe he had their bests interests in mind. Pathetic, pathetic.

“Yeah, probably,” is all he can say. The room was cold and he could feel her shivering a little, so he wrapped his arm around her. She huddled into him. At least his big dumb body was good at producing heat.

Five must be cold too, but he didn’t stir. Luther could barely make out the movement of his breathing, slow and shallow. Five had proven himself to be a lot tougher than appearances would suggest, and he was easily the smartest of the team. It’d be stupid to treat him as a little kid.

But Luther had been at the right angle to see Five’s eyes flare open with panic when he first saw the Handler, and he couldn’t get the image out of his head.

He should have insisted they stay together, back at the mansion. He’d suspected that Five had used up more energy than he was letting on. Luther knew how much jumping with other people took out of him. He’d already taken Luther to the spare room, and Mom and Pogo to the shed, and he’d been planning transporting them again. Nevermind the blood splatters that said he’d already been in at least one fight.

He should have known Five was overreaching and offered up some sort of other plan, if he was any sort of leader. Instead, he ran off after Allison without bothering to question anything.

No wonder Five was insisting on zugzwang. Luther quite obviously couldn’t strategize his way out of a wet paper bag, so they had to hope the enemy did the work for them.

Well, if nothing else being alone on the moon had taught him something like patience. “Get some rest,” he told Allison, avoiding her gaze. “I’ll keep watch.”

She was scowling at him doubtfully. She was always scowling at him these days, pushing him into one thing or another. _Wake me in a couple hours,_ she tapped finally. _I mean it._

“Sure,” he agreed easily, and eventually she dropped into a doze against his shoulder.

He didn’t bother waking her. He watched the guards doggedly, tried to memorize their patterns as fresh guards relieved others of their posts. This time, he wasn’t going to miss an opportunity when it reared its head.

 

 

 

Five would kill for a cup of coffee. That wasn’t really a new development for him, but waking up to the Handler’s cheerful ‘good morning, sunshine’ and only having roughly half a cylinder firing was just too much to ask. His throat ached abominably and the sedatives made his brain feel like cotton fluff. It was hard to tell how much time had passed, but the Handler was wearing a new outfit if that was any indication of things.

“The doctor says he’s ready to begin again,” she chattered, unlocking his cuffs and tugging the needle out from his arm. When he sat up she snagged him by the chin and tipped his head up, examining the bruises on his throat. He didn’t bother resisting, tilting his eyes patiently at the ceiling. “My goodness, you really shouldn’t antagonize poor Patrick. He’s a sensitive man.”

“Sensitive,” he scoffed, voice still a bit rough. She released him and he slipped lightly from the table. He didn’t feel weak or unsteady the way he had after the tranquilizer darts, fortunately. “Big sensitive IRA bomber with a penchant for serial killing.”

“Delicate, even.” She gestured to the soldiers and they started chivvying Allison and Luther up and toward the door. Five didn’t need to be encouraged to follow after them. “You two are practically from the same era. When I assigned him to shadow you I thought for sure you’d get along.”

“Two peas in a pod.” He ran a hand over his face as they walked through the brightly-lit hallways, trying to think. This wasn’t a useful conversation to be having. “Is there a coffee pot in one of these rooms?”

“Coffee stunts your growth, young man.”

“According to Paddy, that won’t be a problem for long.” She just smiled and curled a hand around his shoulder to hustle him along, nails biting in a little. She was a tall woman, and Five had to quicken his stride to keep up. “You know, I don’t get it.”

“What’s that?”

“What you’re doing here. I’m not sure how the timeline shook out, but you were dead there for a while. Fucking _Hazel_ took you out, of all people.” Her grip tightened on his shoulder dangerously. “You failed your big mission and got yourself killed—not exactly a stellar performance review. Why’d management put you in charge here?”

She was quiet a moment, heels clicking rhythmically. “I wasn’t lying back then,” she said suddenly. “The offer of a new body, that wasn’t a lie. We’re actually quite good a building bodies. Even memories aren’t too tricky, I’m told. When Hazel turned in his resignation, he filed it right here.” Without looking at him, she tapped her bangs, dead center.

“Nice shot.”

“Cha-Cha was the brains of that operation, but Hazel’s no slouch, I must say. It did destroy a good bit of my brain, but the memory center was more or less alright. A bit of data extraction later, and you’ve got a brand new me.”

“So much for being a small cog.”

“I’ve got you to thank for my resurrection act, actually. They wanted someone who knows you, who worked with you in the past—it’s one thing to kill you, but capturing you takes a bit more insight. That really narrows it down to just me and Mr. McGillivray, and they didn’t trust him to manage. Between you and me, they think he’s a little unstable.”

Imagine that, he thought snidely.

“The whole thing has been a bit of a stain on my professional reputation, I must admit. I doubt they’d go through the trouble again if I don’t get results here,” the Handler admitted in a deceptively airy tone. “But it’s not all bad. I may have had to promise the kill to Patrick to get him to participate, but watching will be nearly as satisfying.”

Five scowled. “Hazel’s the one who shot you. Shouldn’t you—”

She halted in her tracks, the hand on his shoulder jerking him to a stop as well and turning him to face her. He eyed her warily; her face was stone-still, giving nothing away. “You were the hand behind Hazel’s strings, let’s not pretend. When they rebuilt my memories, they left everything. Do you know what I remember, day after day?”

Something in her voice made Five want to take a step back, like a viper’s hiss. “That bullet, drilling its way into my head. A pain so intense that I need to claw it back out again.” She brushed her bangs to the side, revealing a litter of scars and half-healed scratches on her forehead. “And I see your fucking face behind that gun.”

They stood staring at each other, surrounded by silent guards. He itched to put distance between them, but there was nowhere to go.

Finally she let her hair cover her forehead again and turned away, compulsively smoothing her dress over her hips. He felt the tension slip away and took a steadying breath. Even back at their first meeting in the Apocalypse he’d known instinctively not to trust her, but this was a whole new level of animosity. He got the feeling that McGillivray would need to be fast about it, or she might just forget her promise and kill Five herself. Death hadn’t left her any saner than before, that was certain.

He kept quiet as they continued through the halls and filtered back into the testing room. The doctor and McGillivray were there waiting for them. Allison and Luther were led to sit down against the far wall again. Luther was looking worried, eyes flicking between Five and the Handler. They’d been able to hear that little conversation, then—Luther was a worrywart whenever he didn’t have something better to occupy his mind with. Five just shrugged and subtly spread his hands; nothing to be done about it.

“Let’s begin,” ordered Heimann abruptly. He was pecking haphazardly at his keyboard, and there was an open briefcase on the table. “Same position. I want a temporal jump today.” Five grimaced as he moved to the designated tile. Right into the most difficult task before he’d had a caffeine infusion to wake up his brain, huh? “A small one, I think. What are your accuracy levels?”

“Going forward is easy. Going to the past is more tricky.” Five admitted. Only two successful trips, and neither of them had the math quite right. The second trip worked out better than the first, even as impromptu as it had been, but honestly he’d never intended to time travel again.

“Fine, a small jump forward. Fifteen seconds.”

“Remember, Five.” The Handler interrupted. “We’re tracking you through time and space. If you try anything funny we’ll shoot one of them.”

“I’ve got it,” he snapped, grinding his teeth. The doctor held up a stopwatch and Five had a brief moment of déjà vu. It was so similar to when he’d trained with Dad that he half-expected to see Vanya in the background with her clipboard. The thought almost made him smile.

“Go,” Heimann said, and Five pulled his powers to him.

Why was it easier to go forward? He’d never quite figured it out. Maybe the answer was as simple; he lived in a body that was accustomed to moving in one temporal direction only. Something to do with the Heisenberg picture for all he knew. All his decades pouring over whatever physics books he could find and he was still no closer to an answer. In the end he’d gotten halfway there with his equations and let instinct do the rest.

But jumping forward, he could do that in his sleep. The blue light warped around his hands and he _twisted_ , the portal opened around him, he fell into the black quantum nothingness—

Electricity crackled through him and he couldn’t hold back a scream, collapsing into a heap on the floor. Dazed, he stared up at the small black eye of the microscope in the ceiling. “What the fuck,” he wheezed, ears ringing. He could vaguely hear Luther shouting in the background. “What the fuck,” he said again, rolling over and propping himself up on his still-twitching arms.

“Ah,” said the doctor. “That’s interesting. The reverse of the briefcases, then.”

“What? Luther,  _Luther_ , shut up. I’m all right.” He got his legs under him and managed to stand up again. God, but that hurt. “Anyone care to tell me why I just got electrocuted?”

McGillivray was smiling like the cat that got the cream, leaning against a wall with his arms crossed. “Dunno boss, but I’m enjoying the show!”

Five ignored him. Outside of this room McGillivray was a threat, but inside it he was just the peanut gallery.

The doctor cleared his throat. “Spatial, then temporal. My briefcases do it the other way around. There was a theory that your powers didn’t involve true spatial movement at all, but it appears I was right.”

“I didn’t do a goddamn spatial jump.”

“Incorrect. You perform a spatial jump every time you attempt to time travel. The earth moves at roughly thirty kilometers per second. Without adjusting for that movement, you risk appearing in the vacuum of space with each jump. The briefcases account for this as well.”

Oh. Oh, that made sense. “So your little device saw I was trying to move, what, two-hundred eighty five miles outside the limits, and stopped me.”

“Yes.”

Shit. The whole point behind all this was to figure out his time travel abilities. If he couldn’t give them data, there was no reason to keep Allison and Luther alive. “Now what?”

“We can’t turn off the boundary lines.” The Handler told Heimann firmly, who looked displeased but didn’t disagree. “Give him too much leash and he’ll find a way to kill us all. Is there another way to test this?”

“Yes. If we calculate the date correctly, in about a year the earth will be in this exact position. If he jumps to that time, the spatial jump would be unneeded.”

“A year, for one test? We can’t sustain that.”

Heimann sighed heavily, drumming his hands against his computer terminal. “Unfortunately I must agree. The only other way…” he leveled a stern look at Five. “I’ll ask again: exactly how accurate are your temporal jumps when going forward in time?”

Five suspected he knew where this was going, and he didn’t like it. “I don’t know.”

“No time like the present. You will need to attempt an extremely small jump forward.”

Thirty kilometers per second, or nineteen miles. One second divided by one hundred thousand three hundred twenty feet. Point zero zero zero zero zero nine. “Nine microseconds,” he calculated incredulously. He had no idea if he could even do that. “Are you serious?”

“In theory you should be able to move to any point and any time.” Even the doctor sounded dubious.

This was going to go so poorly, he though to himself. A human could process information at about 120 miles per second, so… yes, in theory, he should be able to. But theory and practice were always very different things. How was he supposed to be that accurate? This was ridiculous.

The Handler clapped her hands together decisively. “Well, you’ll just have to give it a try.”

“I don’t suppose you’d just take my word for it that I wouldn’t try anything if you turned the tracker off?”

“Not a chance.”

“Didn’t think so.” He smiled grimly. Inwardly he was resisting a certain level of panic, because he was pretty sure this wasn’t going to work. He wracked his brain for alternatives. What if he just jumped a year ahead? But no, they’d kill his siblings and no doubt just be waiting for him anyway. He could jump to either Allison or Luther and use the element of surprise to teleport one of them away to another room, try to dig out the tracker in time to save at least one person. But he couldn’t, he couldn’t. He couldn’t leave one of them behind and still live with himself. He couldn’t take another body on his conscience.

No options then, he’d just have to figure it out. Five glanced over at his siblings; Luther was tense enough that a vein stood out on his forehead. Allison had her hands clasped over her knees, but when she saw him looking she flashed a quick bit of sign language with a furtive gesture at Luther— _him._  He shook his head subtly. Nice of her to try to take the fall, but it wasn’t happening.

“All right,” he said heavily. “Let’s do this.”

Five pulled his powers to him and thought, _fast, fast_. Nine microseconds in the future. About forty-thousand times faster than the blink of an eye. That’s all he had to travel, just that, it was barely even time travel at all, so do it, do it—He twisted his powers and even as the portal opened he knew it was wrong. He fell, convulsing with electricity. His head struck the ground hard.

“Again,” ordered Heimann when he recovered enough to sit up. He decided against standing again, because the last thing he needed right now was a concussion.

Again, sure. Faster. One hundred eleven times faster than a camera flash, no fucking problem. His powers twisted and he ran face-first into the electric fence again, barely biting back a scream.

Twist again, electricity. Twist again, pain. Again. Faster.

“Stop this!” Luther was pleading with the Handler, and there was a loud cracking noise. Five couldn’t spare him any thought. Prone against the ground, he breathed for a moment and forced his muscles to unclench. Light travels at 1000 feet per microsecond.

Again, and it chewed him up and spat him out. Again. Light, the movement of photons. Time travel wasn’t travel, you didn’t move. The spatial jump was separate.

Again and he bit his tongue with the convulsions, a bright bloom of iron flooding his mouth. Wave functions. It wasn’t about travel, it was transposition not transportation, it was tricking the universe and saying, ‘what are you talking about, I was always here.’

Over and over. It wasn’t about speed. He didn’t need to be faster, he just needed to be _there_ , with nothing in between. Space and time were functions, they weren’t realities, just manifestations, interpretive dimensions. The suspended quantum state of his body that exists across every possible instance of time. He was already there, nine microseconds forward, one hundred years, it shouldn’t make a difference.

It did, a human body couldn’t tolerate that sort of incoherence, straight up couldn’t move through time in any way but the normal progression. But he didn’t need it to, did he? He was moving his consciousness, his quantum state. Wave-function collapse, when two systems interact they entangle. He needed to interact with the world nine microseconds from now and entangle himself with it, persuade the eigenstate to manifest in a new body for his consciousness.

Again, the bolt of agony. His arm burned where the tracker was injected, but he ignored that too. He could practically see the strings when he pulled his powers around his fists, the infinitely tight knit of reality. Five imagined himself reaching out and touching a thread. He imagined becoming the thread, rippling across all of spacetime at once. Nine microseconds—a meaningless number. He was already everywhere.

The portal ripped open and he fell into it.

There was a long moment of silence.

“Did something just happen?” McGillivray asked uncertainly.

“Might have just been a spatial jump,” the Handler sounded just as hesitant. Five blearily opened his eyes to find he’d shifted about eight feet from his original position. Not exactly nine microseconds then, but close enough that the old thrill of success lifted at the corner of his mouth.

His body ached horribly and his head wasn’t far behind. His arm burned viciously but looked fine on the surface, which likely meant the tracker inside of him had heated up with the overuse. Five wanted nothing more than to just stay collapsed on the floor until he felt less awful, but he slowly bullied himself up onto wobbly legs. “It wasn’t a spatial jump,” he told them, trying for condescending. His voice sounded bad too. Must have been screaming there for a bit, though he couldn’t remember it.

Over near his siblings, there was an impressive dent in the wall with spidering cracks running along it. Five spent a confused minute wondering how a time jump had made that happen, before remembering the crack he’d heard. He looked sharply at Luther, who had the grace to look abashed. He’d probably hit the wall in anger and gotten carried away.

Allison had tears of frustration in her eyes, he noticed with a stab of guilt. He gave them as confident of a smile as he could and tried to stand up straight, though his muscles threatened to cramp.

“It was a temporal jump,” the doctor confirmed, peering with enthusiasm at his computer screen. “We’re recording excellent data. Please provide a description.”

Five shrugged irritably, not feeling particularly cooperative. “Just like any other time I’ve time traveled.”

“You hit the limiters thirty-two times before success.”

“Yeah, well, the margin of error was a bitch.”

Heimann frowned at him, but visibly decided not to pursue the topic. “Very well. Please continue.”

He bit back an automatic rejection—he might feel like crap but he’d worked through worse. Besides, he thought he had a feel for it now. He moved slowly back to the original tile, stretching out his muscles cautiously.

Without further hesitation, he sought out the headspace he’d been in, the understanding of the threads that went deeper than instinct, and threw himself into a portal. He let out a sigh of relief when he popped back out again, forcing himself to relax when the pain didn’t come.

Six feet change this time. He allowed himself to be smug about the improvement, because he had to take whatever victories he could find, right now.

“Again,” ordered the doctor. Five grimaced but went back to the tile to give himself enough leeway.

A half-dozen jumps later and Five staggered out of the portal, knowing he was done. He bent with his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath as sweat trickled at his temple. He’d never tried that many time jumps in a row before, it was a tremendous drain even at such short intervals. He didn’t know what made them so much more taxing than spatial jumps, but it was obvious his body didn’t much care for it.

Heimann was frowning at him. “Already?” Five just shrugged, still panting a little. “How irritating, we’ve only barely begun for the day. Tell me, do you know why your powers stop working after extensive use?”

“Lack of energy.”

“Incorrect. According to the data I’m receiving, you use up very little energy—and not from the sources one might imagine. Come look at this,” he said, turning away from Five and addressing the Handler.

She pushed away from where she’d been leaning against a wall, coming over to stand beside him at the computer. McGillivray followed uninvited, and the doctor eyed him with distaste but didn’t reject his presence, pointing to something on the screen. “You see?”

“Uh, not really,” said McGillivray.

“This is information transmitted from the cellular region around the implant at the moment of teleportation. You find all the normal structures—ribosomes, cytoplasm, nucleus, mitochondria. If he were using normal energy, he should have significantly more mitochondria than the average person to cope. But he has a very normal level.”

The Handler squinted at the screen, pointing at something. “I don’t recognize that.”

“Exactly. Neither do I.” Five glowered when they all glanced curiously at him, uncomfortable with the scrutiny. “He has unique architecture in his cells, which activates only during teleportation. The readings indicate the capacity of energy should be much, much higher than he’s displayed thus far.”

“Obviously not.” Five said shortly, but was ignored.

“This means something else is inhibiting his abilities. A human, you know, has the theoretically ability to be much stronger than the average person, but the body places limits to prevent self-injury.”

“Women lifting cars off of babies, that kind of thing.”

“Yes,” he agreed with McGillivray, turning away to open his medical bag. “All we need to do is find a counter-effect to the inhibitor, and our experiments can continue at a much improved rate. I spent our last interruption putting together a few compounds that may assist.”

He pulled out a variety capped needles and started placed them in a row on the desk. The Handler strode over to Five and herded him back to the table, where he took a reluctant seat. He thought briefly about trying to break the needles, but it would only buy a short amount of time and there definitely would be repercussions.

He stayed where he was, scowling. “What makes you think any of these will do the trick?”

“There’s a peculiar molecule in your blood that increases with each jump, similar to a buildup of lactic acid during exercise. Like your cellular architecture, the substance is unique. However, it is still biological, and therefore able to be analyzed.”

Compared to building a time-traveling briefcase, Five supposed it _would_  be relatively simple. He wasn’t happy about the sheer number of needles queued up on the desk, but at least they didn’t look like the harpoon from the first injection. Also, he didn’t see any reason to worry about jumping a bit more. If the lactic acid metaphor was sound, it wouldn’t be any worse than a runner pushing through the burn to finish a marathon.

Heimann injected the first of the syringes into the crook of his elbow. Short of a slight burn as it went in, Five didn’t feel any different.

“Well?” The Handler demanded impatiently.

Five pulled at his powers, but just got the same biting-aluminum sensation as ever. He let it fizzle out. “Nope,” he said, letting the ‘p’ pop a little. The doctor didn’t seem deterred, discarding the needle and making a notation in the computer.

The same result happened with the next few attempts. “All this is accomplishing is turning my veins into swiss cheese,” he remarked as the doctor pushed the next dose into his sore arm. He pulled—there was a tearing sensation, his eyes flew wide and he disappeared on a startled gasp—

He reappeared a few feet away, the surprise of it dropping him onto his ass. Something was wrong, he thought wildly, patting himself down hastily. Something was broken, or cut, or sprained—he’d felt it tear, what was it? But there was no pain now, just a lingering sense of wrongness.

“Beta blockers,” Heimann said, sounding pleased. “Sodium valproate, mostly, with a few others in the mix. We can resume testing.”

“No,” Five blurted out without thinking, and Heimann’s eyebrows flew up toward his hairline in offense. “Something happened. I don’t know what, but—"

The Handler snagged a pistol from one of the guards’ holsters and stalked over to the far wall, holding it against Luther’s head and cocking the hammer back wordlessly. Luther looked like he was considering trying to steal the gun from her. Five shut his mouth, grinding his teeth and getting to his feet.

“All right, all right, don’t shoot him.” He capitulated, trying to look docile and pushing the unease away as best as he could. “What are we doing, spatial jump? Time jump?”

“You are  _so_ much easier to deal with like this,” she said thoughtfully, pulling back the gun. “I should have gone the hostage route ages ago.”

“Temporal jump,” the doctor decided, bypassing the drama. “With another person, this time.”

“Not it,” McGillivray said immediately, and the Handler rolled her eyes.

In the end they picked another guard at random. Big Nordic-looking guy, when he took his mask off on command. Not nearly as stoic as the last one, shifting weight from foot to foot nervously. “Can’t we use a lab rat or something instead?”

“No point,” the doctor said dismissively. “We never transport non-humans with the briefcases.”

“Yes, but…”

“Be quiet. Begin the test.”

“Management, huh?” Five commented sympathetically, grabbing the guy’s arm. He took a few deep breaths, trying to get back into the mental zone. No problem, he could do this—

The tearing sensation ripped through him as they moved through the eigenstate, some sort of deep all-encompassing pain that shot through every atom before abruptly vanishing as they lurched out of the portal. Five would have lost his footing just from the shock of it if he hadn’t had a deathgrip on the guard’s arm. His breath was coming way too fast, and he had to force himself not to hyperventilate. Fuck, what the hell _was_ that? It felt like dying but he was fine, not a scratch on him that hadn’t already been there.

Heimann looked up from the computer. “There’s obviously some sort of physical effect, but the data’s unclear. Please report.”

“I wasn’t even sure anything had happened,” said the guard, looking deeply relieved.  “Didn’t feel a thing.”

Five just shook his head wearily, not sure how to explain what he didn't understand himself.

“But there is something different.”

“It’s irrelevant,” he snapped shortly, because it was. It’s not like the tests were going to stop just because he was getting some sort of…quantum bruise, or whatever the hell was going on.

“Boss, play nice with the doctor.”

“I don’t _know_ ,” he relented with bad grace, glaring. “Yes, something’s different but I’ve got no clue what or why.”

“Hm.” Heiman said. “I have some theories, but nothing concrete as of yet. Let’s continue.”

Five bared his teeth in a grimace, but tugged at the blond guard’s arm. “Over here, I need the extra space.” They moved to the center of the room again and Five used the chance to check on Luther and Allison again, because this was going from bad to worse. They were too far apart to get them both at the same time, and their group of guards hadn’t let up at all. Still no opportunity for a snatch-and-grab. He avoided their eyes, not wanting them to see how worried he was.

Again, he summoned his powers and twisted. It was strange, like the time spent interacting on the quantum level was getting longer. He couldn’t see because he had no body anymore, but he could for a brief moment perceive the shining matrix of spacetime. He was pretty sure it wasn't just his imagination anymore. That was new, he thought to himself, before the pain slashed through him again and they materialized right at the edge of the room.

Five leaned against the wall, trying to control himself. His lungs felt off, a little hitch in the bottom of each inhale. It was a bit like that time he’d caught the flu as a kid, he thought, coughing a bit to try to clear it out. He’d been further away from the nine microsecond mark, he realized as the coolness of the wall pressed against his back.  Was his accuracy worsening? Or just a fluke? He’d have to be more careful.

Eight more times he jumped with the guard, so far beyond his limits that he kept expecting his powers to crap out on him completely. Each time his breathing got a little worse, until finally he couldn’t keep his feet and had to sink to his knees while his body did its best to cough up a lung.

“What’s wrong with him?” Luther asked, voice tight with tension.

“Who cares?” The Handler sounded delighted. Of course she would be having fun, the bitch.

Five was getting lightheaded, but he couldn’t seem to stop. Abruptly a harsh cough dislodged something deep in his chest and his spat it out. His breathing got a little easier then, and he gulped down air until he felt more stable. His clothes were damp with sweat.

“Oh,” said McGillivray. “That’s probably not good.”

Five blinked until his vision cleared and realized the ground in front of him was smeared with a small amount of bright red. Christ, he’d coughed up blood.

He had a moment of horrible clarity that he was probably going to die here. If Paddy didn’t get him first, his own powers were going to eat him alive.


	5. Chapter 5

Five allowed himself to shift off his knees, sitting heavily against the wall. His breathing was improved but still had enough of a hitch in it that he moved cautiously. He let the voices wash over him as he tried to get his resting heart rate back to a more reasonable level—hard to tell if it was from the exertion or the anxiety, but his pulse was high and uneven. Five leaned his head back with a thud and breathed as deeply as he dared.

Heimann wanted to continue testing—said the damage couldn’t be too bad yet, though what he was basing that on Five had no idea. The Handler was worried Five would kick the bucket before they got the data they needed. Luther was on her side, which just proved how pear-shaped the situation had gotten—“Look how grey he is! He can’t keep going—”

McGillivray was suspiciously silent. Five opened his eyes and jolted in surprise when Paddy’s face was right in front of him, crouching down to eye level.  “Don’t get in a tizzy, boss,” he grinned, flopping loose-limbed to sit next to Five, still uncomfortably close. “Just making sure you’re still with us.”

“Fine,” the doctor abruptly snapped, throwing up his hands and cutting off the Handler’s persistent arguments. “He can take a break while I make adjustments to the briefcase.”

“Thank you, doctor,” she replied. It was strange to hear her be so deferential—still pushy about what she wanted, maybe, but definitely subordinate. It spoke volumes about how high up in the hierarchy Heimann was. “Better safe than sorry, you know.”

Heimann just waved her off grumpily and turned his attentions to the briefcase splayed open on the table, taking a variety of tools out of his medical bag and connecting something inside the briefcase to the computer with a long wire. Five couldn’t be bothered to try to figure out what he was doing, though part of him was curious about the inner workings of the briefcases.

He eyed the guards standing over Allison and Luther. They were at-ready, guns pointed unrelentingly at his siblings. They still hadn’t slipped up at all, which spoke very well of their training and very poorly for the whole zugzwang thing. And really, Five wasn’t totally sure what he was going to do if they _did_ slip up. He couldn’t get Allison and Luther out of the complex with the tracker in his arm.

Best he could do is try to hide them in a side room and hope they weren’t found until he could find a knife and dig it out, which meant he had to steal a knife without getting caught. Maybe Luther could break the tracker for him, though it would mean crushing his arm in the process. A knife would be less traumatic, though it was deep enough in his shoulder that it would still be an excruciating experience. He wouldn’t be able to keep his hands steady, he’d have to ask Allison to do it for him. Luther’s hands were too big to play doctor. 

Plus, he didn’t know how long the doctor’s beta blockers would last before his powers failed again. He wasn’t excited about doing the long-distance time and space tandem jump it was going to take to get out of this place when even short jumps were causing internal bleeding, but he wouldn’t hesitate if they could get everything else in order. Mom could probably fix whatever damage he did to himself. He hoped.

But none of these plans meant anything if he couldn’t get both Luther and Allison without either of them getting shot. The chances of that were decreasingly likely.

The Handler left Heimann to his work and came to Five’s other side, toeing off her heels and taking a seat close enough that her shoulders brushed his. She’d been bad at personal space even when they were nominally on the same side, but he suspected this was as much a power play as anything. Flanked by her and Paddy, Five fantasized briefly about murdering them both.

“Don’t look so bloodthirsty,” she chided mildly, fluffing the ends of her dress over her extended legs. McGillivray yawned and stretched his arms. God, for all their psychopathy they were both such _humans_. How could they work so hard for the end of everything? It was likely Paddy didn’t think past his own day-to-day violent compulsions, but the Handler at least seemed genuinely dedicated to the apocalypse.

“You never did really answer me, when we first met,” he pointed out, grimacing when his voice came out with an unhealthy wheeze.

“How’s that?”

“The apocalypse. Why do you want the end of the world?”

“Oh, that again.”

“Yes, that again,” he said crossly, resisting the urge to cough. “Why are you working so hard for the death of seven billion other humans? What good does a barren wasteland do for upper management?”

She gave him an inscrutable look. “Whatever sob story I tell you wouldn’t make a difference, so I won’t waste my breath. Let’s put it this way,” she said, waving an idle hand. “Humans are bastards, and we all know it. Nasty, cruel, self-interested barbarians in all eras. Any species that can so consistently produce people like us doesn’t deserve to continue. Haven’t you heard, Five? Some people really do want to watch the world burn.”

“Oh, and a lifeless desert is so much better,” Five sneered, unswayed.

“You really weren’t listening back then,” she said, amused about it. “It’s not the end of everything, just the end of something.”

“I don’t know if you took a look around while you were there, but there wasn’t anything left.”

“You were only there for such a short time, Five.”

“Decades,” he protested, incensed, then subsided again when the outburst pulled at his chest.

She just smiled, curling and uncurling her toes. “You of all people know that’s no time at all. Less than a drop in the bucket. You know, your father really should have told you all of this. Not very nice of him to raise child soldiers without even giving them a cause to fight for.”

Luther and Allison perked up at that. “What’s Dad got to do with it?” Luther demanded.

“Why, he’s part of the something that comes after.”

Five waited for her to continue, but she was obviously enjoying herself. “Stop being so melodramatic,” he chastised.

She huffed at him. “Really, no fun at all. Fine, to put it plainly your father was part of the alien civilization that takes up residence on Earth a few thousand years after the apocalypse.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Luther dismissed, and at the same time Five nodded thoughtfully and said, “I can see that.”

“No, you can’t,” Luther denied, looking offended.

Five was sympathetic, he really was. Luther was the only one of them with any love for Dad. He’d come a long way from the hero-worship, but he was still stuck in some ways. “Building Grace, all that tech? A functional moon base—that never struck you as weird?”

“He was a billionaire, billionaires can do that sort of thing.”

“I’m pretty sure no other billionaires know how to genetically engineer a chimpanzee into a butler. Allison, you run in wealthy circles, any monkey assistants on the red carpet?”

She glowered at him in a way that meant ‘you know there’s not, don’t be mean.’ Instead, she laboriously tapped out a question: _if that’s all true, what’s that mean for us?_

The Handler sighed. “It’s a shame you’re the one who has to be gagged. You’re much smarter than the big one.”

“Oh,” said Five, a little dumbfounded, belatedly connecting the dots. “We’re aliens.”

“No we’re not!” Luther exclaimed, even more offended.

Five laughed. “Luther, come on. How many humans do you know that have ‘unique architecture’ in their cells? How many people can use Rumors, or lift the weight you can without breaking a sweat? We can all break the laws of physics in some way or another, you can’t think that’s normal.”

“No,” Luther hesitated. “No, but…”

Five left him to work out the revelation for himself, turning his attention back to the Handler. “So what’s the cause?”

“Hm?”

“You said he raised us as child soldiers without telling us the cause. What was it?”

“Upper management’s made up of aliens.” She said bluntly. “A colonial taskforce. Turns out that the old sci-fi idea of terraforming a planet is a bit more difficult than it sounds. They have to take the long way around.”

“Blow it up, wait a few thousand years.” Five mused.

“That’s right. Create the ideal circumstances and let it play out naturally. They’re not too keen on oxygen-rich environments, you see. All the biological matter had to go.”

“Dad didn’t seem to mind.”

“Well, I hear tell that the good Reginald Hargreeves was a fantastic bio-engineer. He rigged himself and his band of children to be able to breathe Earth-air, among other things.”

 _What other things_ , Allison asked.

“Well, you’re not the normal brand of alien. They have similar abilities, but nothing quite like you lot. Their teleporters, for example, damage the quantum level just the same as the briefcases, and are much more limited in their capabilities unless assisted by technology.”

 “What about Dad,” Luther interjected, leaning forward suddenly. “I never saw him do anything a human couldn’t.” Five wondered if he’d really come to terms with it that fast, or if he was just playing along.

“His powers were quite strong. He should have been part of upper management but he was a bit of a wild rebel in his youth.” Five scoffed, and she wagged a finger at him. “Children never believe their parents were ever young.”

He had already worked out the logical progression. Reginald had obviously traveled back to their era, which is why he understood the dangers of time-travel and the whole acorn business so thoroughly. He’d been insistent on the mental hazards—personal experience, apparently. Had he been so thoroughly changed?

“Your father,” she continued, clasping a dramatic hand over her heart and sighing. “Was a _romantic_.”

“Don’t lie,” Five said, vaguely horrified. Next to him, Paddy snorted a laugh.

“It’s true! They’re quite hierarchical, you see, and he fell in love with someone he shouldn’t have. From what I’ve heard it was quite scandalous. But you see, your father’s ability involved seeing time—not traveling it, like you, but being able to sort through the branches of possibilities. He knew from the beginning she would die young, and he started thinking about silly notions of equality and oppressive regimes. You know how it goes. Brilliant mind, soft heart.”

Five did. He’d assassinated any number of people with ideas like that.

“But when no one listened to him, and she died, he decided to play a different game. You see, it was impossible for their teleporters to bring a powerful enough weapon into the right time in order to set off a mass extinction. The plan had always been to send back Reginald’s bio-engineered forty-three children, let them figure out a way. Each of you was supposed to be strong enough to end the world in one way or another, so chances are one of you would stumble into it.”

“Ah,” he said, coughing a bit to relieve the pressure building in his chest. “Didn’t quite do his job, huh?”

“Management’s very irritated about that.” She said, clicking her tongue. “Your Vanya’s the only one who still fit the ticket, when all was said and done. He should have just killed her, but her powers are based off of his ladylove’s. Probably couldn’t bear to do it, even if he Saw the results.”

In the background Heimann ripped out a bit of wiring from the briefcase, sending sparks flying. “And the corrections department?”

“Your father’s not the only Seer, though he did manage to hamstring them a bit. They recruited the assassins to, at first, make it as likely as possible that the children would survive to complete their mission. Then, when it became apparent what Reginald had done, we switched gears into focusing on destabilizing Vanya.”

She sighed, raising an absent hand to scratch at her forehead. “And then, just when we thought it was over, you screwed it all up.”

“Somehow I don’t feel too bad about—”

Abruptly Five _rippled_. His powers washed blue over his body as he jerked, there then gone in an instant, and he had the impression of moving without moving at all. It hurt, not the tearing pain from before but a deep ache that left him exhausted. McGillivray and the Handler both leaned away from him, startled.

“What was that?!” McGillivray demanded, jumping to his feet. The Handler followed more slowly, watching Five with caution.

“I don’t know,” he replied, bewildered. He inhaled deeply, realizing that his lungs felt stronger. In fact, he felt a lot better than before, despite the weariness.

“It was a jump,” Heimann said, who had rushed back to his computer. “An infinitesimally small jump of only a few nanometers.”

Five shook his head; he hadn’t made a jump. Even as a little kid his powers had never responded without some sort of intent. Responded to dreams, sure, or instinct, but this hadn’t been anything like that. It was completely outside his control.

The doctor hummed as he read the data on the screen. “That’s interesting. The device is reporting some discrepancies. Rather than a true teleportation, only certain portions of his body were involved.”

McGillivray shoved his hands in his pockets and stared at the ceiling, looking fed up. “I’m pretty much done with the science lessons. Can we get the abridged versions?” The Handler shot him a look and he made a face, but didn’t apologize.

“This is only a hypothesis,” the doctor warned, before shrugging lightly. “His powers are imperfect. Each jump, a few cells get misplaced or misaligned. This is marginal, and the body can adjust for it on its own.” He started pacing slowly. “But when the beta-blockers removed his natural limitations, too many imperfections accumulated without time for self-correction. A misaligned vein in the lungs, perhaps, that started bleeding.”

Five felt the vague, irrational urge to defend against criticism his powers, but shoved it down.

Heimann fixed Five with a look, as though examining a specimen. “He indicated earlier it normally took at least a half hour between exhausting his abilities and being able to use them again. I believe enough time passed that he recuperated enough for one jump. His body used the jump on a non-voluntary level to selectively move some of the misaligned cells back into place.”

 “That would be an incredible level of accuracy,” the Handler raised a delicate eyebrow.

“Most processes become more accurate when conscious thought is removed. Think of it as muscle memory.”

Huh. Five had no idea if Heimann was right. Even Dad (his dad, the alien—that was going to take getting used to) had never pushed his powers like this, so it was new territory. But he couldn’t think of a better hypothesis.

“All right, the old bastard’s magic and continues to _be_ magic.” McGillivray grumbled. “Grand. What now?”

“We can resume testing. So long as the accumulative damage won’t kill him within a half-hour, he should be able to fix it himself. First, however—” The doctor reassembled the briefcase and clicked it closed. “I want to test the modifications, to better focus the experiments.” He passed it off to the nearest guard, who stripped his helmet off. “Go to the center of the room and open it. I’ve preprogrammed a simple one-person spatial teleportation.”

“Yes sir,” the man replied, saluting sharply. He was Asian in both skin tone and accent, though Five couldn’t place it well enough to say for certain which country. Filipino, maybe. He walked into position and knelt beside the briefcase. After a confirming nod from Heimann, he popped it open.

Light flooded the room and the guard disappeared, appearing with another flash of light about six feet away. There was a moment’s pause where everything seemed normal, then he liquified into a foul-smelling fleshy puddle.

“Christ,” swore McGillivray, and the Handler quickly covered her nose with a handkerchief. Five could hear Luther gagging and Allison making a revolted, horrified noise. His own stomach turned with disgust.

“How unfortunate,” is all Heimann had to say. Five grimaced as the puddle started to spread, the fluid and bits of gristle flooding slowly over the floor.

McGillivray stepped back quickly to avoid getting any on his boots. “Do we have a cleanup crew? Christ, I need a drink.”

“The TempCorps can handle it,” the doctor dismissed, unconcerned. “Put them back in the cells while this room gets cleaned. I need more time to work. This test was…illuminating, at least.”

Five suspected he knew the issue. His body didn’t physically move during time travel, because time-constrained matter _couldn’t_. Heimann was missing the equation to make a new shell for the consciousness on the other side.

Which meant the original briefcases did somehow keep the body intact; they offered true teleportation. No wonder they tore holes in space-time. Well, if the doctor hadn’t figured it out by now, Five certainly wasn’t going to clue him in.

Though really, if the tradeoff for quantum holes was an accumulation of errors that made you cough up a lung…Five grimaced and used the wall to lever himself back up. He felt like a full-body bruise but the involuntary jump had obviously done some good. For how long, was the question.

He wasn’t going to last like this, he thought to himself as the guards gathered up Luther and Allison, giving the puddle a wide berth. The doctor was too anxious for answers to be careful about his test subject, and the Handler was too malicious to be relied on to be the voice of reason. She was the only one holding Heimann and McGillivray back right now, but Five suspected she wasn’t committed to finding time-travel answers as much as she was to payback.

The Handler and McGillivray took up position on either side of him. Obviously neither of them was willing to stay back in the room until it was cleaned up. Five went willingly; Luther was about ten feet ahead with his entourage, and Allison another seven or so beyond him with hers. Luther looked a little pale, he thought when he caught a glimpse of his face as his group rounded a corner.

All the Umbrella Academy members got hungry when they overused their power. It was one of the few commonalities between them, he reflected. But of all of them, Luther was the only one to use his powers pretty much constantly. Klaus too, but his were more passive than the constant demands of excess muscle.

It was hard to tell how long they had been here, but it was definitely more than a day. Point was, Luther was probably pretty hungry by now. Five suspected he’d also be starving if the overwork hadn’t left him with a hollow sort of nausea. A nutrient drip was all well and good, but calories were what his body really needed to recover properly. Dad had tested that too, and after all he’d gone hungry a lot in the apocalypse. Enough to know that satiation and power went hand-in-hand.

Of course, that was before the new mystery variable of the sodium valproate came into play. In some ways it would be interesting to see which gave out first, the capability of the beta blockers or their ability to override his normal rules. But he feared he’d end up another puddle from error accumulation before getting an answer, so food was the higher priority.

“I’ll need food soon if we’re going to keep this up.” He commented and gestured down the hallway at his siblings. “Them too.

“We’ll see,” the Handler said noncommittally.

“You ever get any better at cooking, boss?” McGillivray interrupted, sounding suddenly nostalgic. “I remember you making that horror of a meal, you know, out in Salisbury?”

“I cook fine.”

“Naw, you really don’t. Grapes in a potato hash with a manky bit of bread. You’ve got no, whatchamacallit, no culinary sense.”

Five rolled his eyes. “As if you can talk. I remember a lot of field meals that were more charcoal than food.”

“Slander,” Paddy objected. “You never turned any of it down.”

“Better than expired canned goods and cockroaches.” Five countered, but he was distracted, eyes on the guards in front of them. “I’m not picky, that doesn’t make you a good cook.” Was…yes, Allison’s guard was slowing around a corner, bunching up and breaking formation, and Luther’s team was on their heels. Closer than they should have been, maybe shaken up by the liquefaction of their teammate. They were lax, the gun muzzles pointing to the floor.

His breath caught in his chest. Zugzwang.

From the corner of his eye he could see the Handler stiffening and opening her mouth in alarm but he was already gone, pushing past the sharp pain of cellular tear and landing next to Allison. In a split second he grabbed her arm and stretched a desperate hand to Luther, who was still too far away to reach.

Time seemed to slow, though already the guards were reacting. Someone got off a shot that went wide, the bullet impacting loudly into the wall. Luther’s eyes widened in realization, then he pushed away the guard between him and Five, the man hitting the wall with a sound like rotten fruit. Luther reached out, long limbs bridging the gap, a scant centimeter away from Five’s fingers—

Another gunshot and Five’s arm exploded in agony, hand flung away from Luther’s by the force of the impact. Even as he cried out in shock and pain he could see zugzwang slipping from his grasp, and he faltered. Suddenly there were a flurry of bullets between them, forcing Luther back. Allison screamed out a warning behind her gag. The nearest soldier to Five took advantage of his distraction and bludgeoned him over the head with the butt of his gun.

Five staggered, despairing as he accidentally released Allison’s arm, head pounding dizzily with the blow as he tried to think enough to jump. McGillivray barreled down the hall but he didn’t notice until too late, his reaction time plummeting with his exhaustion.  He slammed into him, using his weight advantage to tackle them both to the floor.

Twisting, Five tried to get his hands up to defend himself. The right had the wound, leaking blood from a hole just above the elbow. Bullet wounds always hurt like fuck and this one was no different, making it practically useless. He went for the eyes with his left, trying to reach any sort of soft tissue.

 McGillivray snarled as he raked his nails across his face, but the damage wasn’t serious. Five felt like he was moving through molasses. On a normal day McGillivray wouldn’t stand a chance—their experience and capabilities were simply too far apart. But now, after being pushed to his limits and with a fresh hole in him…He didn’t have the leverage or strength to get him off, and he couldn’t manage a jump until the room stopped spinning so wildly. Paddy knew better than to give him that sort of time.

He was aware of a continuing scuffle surrounding them but couldn’t spare the concentration.  Paddy had pinned down his weakened right hand and had the left by the wrist between them. Stymied, Five reared up and sank his teeth into McGillivray’s forearm.

He screamed, which managed to be gratifying even through the concussion daze. Less gratifying was the consequence: McGillivray released him and used his free hand to land an efficiently brutal punch to Five’s temple.

Immediately the world went even hazier, reduced to foggy shapes and colors. In a daze he loosened his jaw and McGillivray ripped his arm away. Five struggled to think, to make a plan, to tell up from down. His body wasn’t really responding to him anymore, and he had the vague knowledge that he should be worried about that, but couldn’t really muster up the energy.

The dark shape pressing him to the floor hit him again, hard enough to rattle his teeth. He couldn’t remember what he’d been trying to do, how he’d gotten here. His head was exploding with pain and it only got worse with the next blow, arm screeching in counterpoint. A final blow and his body gave the fuck up, going limp without his permission.

“Well,” he could hear a woman say, sounding breathless. “That was close.”


	6. Chapter 6

Allison was afraid. A day, maybe two had passed since the botched escape attempt, punctuated by four sessions with the doctor. Five had looked worse after each one, the bruises on his face and neck deepening. Newer contusions littered his skin at random, the result of overusing his powers.

  
Each time he blew past his natural limits, it seemed to her like it got harder and harder for Five to recover. Not that he’d say anything, but Allison could tell. She had dim memories of him coming to the dinner table after training when they were kids, pale and shaky, but nothing like this. He couldn’t even make it back to the cells now without collapsing in the hallways, leaving McGillivray to drag him back by the collar of his shirt.

Two sessions ago he’d snapped a bone in his leg, apparently weakened enough that it suddenly gave out when he tried to walk on it. It had taken a long time for that to heal, hours of him groaning through his teeth when the involuntary jumps swept through him. Another session had given him an arrhythmia so severe she hadn’t been sure he’d make it to the half-hour mark.

Even now under sedation, the passage of time was punctuated by the intermittent jumps, a quick flash of bright-blue light that made their guards shift uneasily each time. They’d been given a longer break than normal this time, but Five’s body was still trying to fix itself. The corrections couldn’t keep up with the damage. She wasn’t even sure what injury was being repaired anymore.

He’d been getting more and more dazed during the most recent session, like he wasn’t completely sure where he was at anymore. Brain damage? Internal bleeding? Simple exhaustion? It was impossible to say. But when he started getting distracted enough that he kept getting electrocuted by the barrier, the doctor finally called things to a halt for the day.

It was obvious how this was all going to play out. The guards hadn’t slipped up again, and she suspected Five no longer had the capacity to take advantage of another mistake even if it did occur. Either Heimann would figure out whatever was going wrong with his briefcase, or they’d eventually get carried away and Five would die. Either way, she and Luther would no longer serve any purpose. She had no illusions of what would happen to them.

They were never getting out of here. She was going to wind up with a hole in her head and no one would even know where to look for her body. Vanya, Luther, Ben, and Klaus would have to deal with the fact they’d just disappeared one day, with no way to gain closure. She’d never see Claire again.

She’d never get to hold her daughter, or read her a story, or see what she looked like when she grew up. She’d never hear her voice or brush her hair and it hurt, it hurt.

Allison was afraid, and heartbroken, and above all that she was furious. The fact that these people would just take her away from Claire, torture her brother, kill them in the name of some fucking aliens looking for real estate—it made her want to scream, her anger a wild bright flame in her chest.

It was either cry or rage, and Luther would get upset if he caught her crying. So instead she leaned into the anger, glaring up at the newest rotation of guards, and thought _I heard a rumor_.

_I heard a rumor you had a heart attack._

_I heard a rumor you died of a stroke._

_I heard a rumor you fell on your knife._

Nothing, of course, because even if she didn’t have a gag they wore their soundproof helmets religiously. She could have shouted herself hoarse and still had no effect. But it was better than sitting there meekly, quietly resigned.

_I heard a rumor you had a seizure._

Her head was hurting a little, no doubt from dehydration and stress, but Allison ignored it, delving into the intensity of her fury. She’d never get a chance to build her relationship with Vanya. She’d never get a chance to get to know Ben as an adult.

_I heard a rumor you held your breath until you suffocated._

Five wasn’t in any condition to take advantage of zugzwang anymore, even if another mistake was made. She was going to have to watch her smallest brother work until he dropped dead, then Luther shot, then they’d shoot her too.

_I heard a rumor you jumped off a tall building._

In a best case scenario, Claire would grow up wondering why her mom disappeared. In a worst-case scenario, the Commission would figure out how to cause the end of the world and her beautiful, perfect daughter would die alone, lost, afraid.

_I heard a rumor you lit yourself on fire._

God, it wasn’t fair, she wanted so much more with her life, there was so much she wanted to do and see and love and it was all going to be taken away, easy as pulling a trigger. She wanted to kill them so badly it broke something in her, she felt feverish with hate, wild and feral with it.

_I HEARD A RUMOR YOU SHOT ALL YOUR FRIENDS AND YOURSELF._

The guard in front of her jerked, the muzzle of his gun wavering in the air, and for a second of blind panic Allison thought he was going to kill her now. Then he swiveled, aimed, and the deafening sound of automatic gunfire roared through the room.

She returned Luther’s wide-eyed look with one of her owned, instinct and training working in tandem to press her flat against the cement. Two of Five’s guards started to return fire but the cell bar left them no coverage. She though she saw a couple bullets hit her guard’s torso, but he mowed them down without a flinch.

It was quiet for a moment as the guard dispassionately surveyed the room, not seeming to register the three prisoners. With little fanfare, he placed the gun under his chin and pulled the trigger.

“What the hell,” Luther said into the abrupt silence. Allison’s ears were ringing as she slowly levered herself up off the floor. He did the same. “What the hell. Was that, was that you—Shit, you’re bleeding, are you hurt?!”

She felt a dampness above her lip and wiped at it gingerly with her cuffed hands, then peeled off the tape covering her mouth. Luther skirted around the bodies to come grasp her shoulder worriedly. “Allison, talk to me. Are you hit?”

“No,” she reassured him automatically. Everything felt a little bizarre, a little disassociated, but she definitely wasn’t hurt. “No, it’s just a nosebleed. Probably shouldn’t do that again though.” It was a relief to speak, like she’d been given a weapon back, and she resisted the urge to touch her throat.

“What _did_ you do? He just went crazy.”

“I think…I think I rumored him? I was angry,” she laughed suddenly, bit it back before it could become something hysterical. “I don’t think I’ve ever been that angry. I just kept thinking of all the things I wanted to do to them. I had a headache, and then he did all this.”

Luther abruptly pulled her into a hug and she leaned into it, appreciating the comfort after everything. “You’re amazing,” he said sincerely. “I’m so sorry.”

“Knock it off,” she ordered the bulk of his chest firmly. “It’s not your fault any more than it is Five’s. Or mine.” She added belatedly, shoving down the hypocritical twinge of guilt.

She pushed him away gently and he let her go, not meeting her eyes. God, she loved her brother but Dad really had done a number on him. Well, they didn’t have time to devote to his inferiority complex right now. Give him something to do—she raised her hands a little, jingling the cuffs. “Think you can do something about this?”

“Oh, sure,” he said, and snapped the metal like it was spun sugar. She breathed a sigh of relief, rubbing at her wrists. The cuffs had been symbolic more than anything, but it was good to have them off. Luther was already turning away, eyeing the bars of the cell. He wrapped his hands around the steel and, with an almighty crunch, pulled a bar straight out. Bits of concrete tumbled away from the ends, and he tossed the bar away with a loud clang.

Allison didn’t bother to mention that one of the bodies surely had a key; it was probably faster this way than rummaging through pockets anyway. In short order Luther had ripped a hole out of their cell, and proceeded to do the same to Five’s. When the dust settled she hurried to Five’s side, tugging the needle from the crook of his arm. “Put pressure on that,” she ordered when he started to bleed a bit. Lacking any sort of bandage, Luther dusted off his hands and pressed a thumb firmly over the vein to encourage it to clot. With his other hand, he made quick work of the cuffs binding Five to the table.

“All right, Five.” She said, brushing his hair from his eyes. “Wake up and let’s get out of here.”

 

 

 

   
“This is a stupid idea,” Dolores told him drolly, the wind fluttering her sleeves as she sat primly in the wagon. They were standing in front of a dilapidated factory that looked like a mean word would knock it over. As they watched, a small chunk of wall crumbled to the ground. “Colossally stupid. In fact, I think you’ve really outdone yourself.”

“It’s not that bad,” he deflected, shielding his eyes against the sun.

“Magnificently dumb. You’re going to die and I’ll laugh for days, I swear I will.”

“We can’t live on wine alone—”

“Not that you haven’t tried.”

“—And winter’s coming,” he continued loudly over the interruption. “I don’t have much of a choice.” A metal sign proclaimed the building to be a cannery. It was on the outskirts of the city; the destruction was particularly bad in this area and his foraging had turned up depressingly scarce. The heat was intense now, but he’d been here long enough that he knew the weather would change fast in about two months. He couldn’t risk getting snow-bound without enough supplies.

“That building is going to collapse on your empty head.” She said, as matter-of-fact as saying the sun would rise. “And I won’t bother to bury you.”

“You won’t have to, if the building does it for you.” He said, amused. She frowned at him in censure and opened her mouth, but he waved off her concerns. “Save your breath, I’m going in. Wish me luck.”

“I shan’t,” she sniffed, and he laughed as he left her behind.

He passed into the looming darkness of the canary, cool almost to the point of chill after standing in the sun for so long. There was just enough light seeping through the empty windows that he could make his way around, which was lucky—his last flashlight had burned out ages ago. Working batteries were in even shorter supply than food these days.

Five moved cautiously through the reception hall, jumping past doors rather than risk the structural integrity. He suspected any sort of production storage would be deeper in, but he still checked each room for supplies as he passed by, grabbing a few pens from what looked like a conference room. No chalk, unfortunately.  
There was a desiccated corpse in the hallway, with what looked like a bucket next to it. Janitor, maybe. Five ignored it, taking the stairwell down into the belly of the building. He hadn’t seen any canning mechanisms, much less a storage room, so it had to be deeper in.

The handrail creaked alarmingly when he touched it, and further in he heard the sound of something crashing to the floor. He kept his hands to himself after that, treading as lightly as he could down the damaged steps. It was darker here but the light from the first floor spread down into the gloom. The building was on slanted ground so he had hope there were windows on the bottom floor as well.

Success—the stairwell fed into a large open area with a vast assembly line. Even after all this time it smelled vaguely of fruit, a sweetness that made his mouth water if he thought too much about it.

He took a cursory look around but this room had only empty cans. Five kept moving, following the assembly line to its end. Logic said the storehouse would be soon after that.

He poked his head in a side room and found a few bodies. Some instinct prickled at the back of his neck, and he almost passed the room by before he saw a few stacked cans on the desk. Five entered the room, avoiding looking at the bodies closely.

“Dumb move,” said Dolores’ voice, and the room shook.

He dove under the desk, the ceiling crumbling quickly. There was a body under there too, and he noted with disgust that it was somehow still wet, still rotting, the stench filling his nose even as the debris smashed to the floor around him. His knee fell with a terrible squelch on something soft and he shuddered, holding back a gag through sheer will alone.

Finally the shaking stopped and the room settled, and he scrambled hastily from under the desk before the dust could even begin to settle. The doorway was blocked with rubble and there was only a thin bar of light coming from the new hole to the first floor. No telling what the assembly room looked like. Time to get out of here and let Dolores rub the failure in his face.

He tried to jump, and nothing happened. He tried again. Five stared dumbfounded at his hands, which failed to even flicker with power.

Under the table, something groaned.

He spun and watched in horror as the corpse raised itself up, exposed gore gleaming slickly in the dim light. “Five,” it moaned, in Luther’s voice.

  
But he’d _buried_ them. He’d worked hard to put them to some sort of rest, cut his hands on the stones until they were fully covered, closed their eyes before he stacked rocks over their heads. He’d tried. He’d tried.

“Five,” said one of the other bodies in the room, twitching to life, and that was Allison, god, he couldn’t do this.

One by one the bodies of his siblings stood and called for him, even Ben and Vanya and there was something wrong about that but he couldn’t put a finger on it, too terrified to think. Again and again he tried to use his powers, to get out, get away from the one thing he couldn’t bear to face. There was no where to go, he couldn’t—  
Luther touched his shoulder and he froze, staring petrified into the holes that once contained his brother’s eyes. Some distant part of him recognized he was hyperventilating.

“Five,” Luther groaned.

“Don’t.” He stammered, heart jackrabbiting and his brain grinding to a halt. “Don’t.”

The shaking started again and he closed his eyes as the walls tumbled in, entombing him together with his siblings, a great chunk of cement plummeting toward him.

“Five. Wake up.”

What?

He opened his eyes and Luther was still there looking down at him, hand heavy on his shoulder. His breath caught in his throat and he lashed out in blind panic, a move that aimed to snap bone clean through.

“Ow,” Luther deadpanned, unfazed, because he was strong and tough, and he—wasn’t dead.

Five stared, feeling his brain try to grind into gear. Reality slowly filtered through the remnants of nightmare, though there were certainly comparisons to make. The bodies littering the floor, for one. But Luther had all his skin, wasn’t rotting, wasn’t some shambling atrocity.

Exhaustion seemed to weigh down at every muscle and part of him just wanted to go back to sleep rather than deal with this. He pushed himself up anyway, reluctantly grateful when Allison helped him into a seated position. The blood pooling from the unfortunate guards was fresh, he noted, but his siblings didn’t have a scratch on them. “What did I miss?” he asked, sounding dazed even to his own ears and taking quick stock of his own condition. The messily-patched gunshot wound in his arm that still ached—working theory was the corrective jumps weren’t going to do anything about that since it wasn’t caused by his powers. Plenty of other nagging pains but nothing felt broken anymore, no active bleeds as far as he could tell. If his heart rate was uneven it could be blamed on the lingering adrenaline.

“Allison got an upgrade.” Luther summed up succinctly.

Allison grimaced at the phrasing but didn’t deny it. “I found a way past the helmets.”

“Huh,” Five grunted, resisting the urge to press his hands at the headache storming behind his eyes. God, it was hard to think like this. “Useful. Can you do it again?”

She hesitated, then shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe if I get mad enough. I was hoping it wouldn’t come to that—can’t you jump us out of here?”

He shook his head roughly, grabbing them by the arms and letting his powers sputter and fail. They both slumped when he released them, crestfallen. “Not enough energy. How long was I out this time?”

“Four or five hours,” Luther said, crossing his arms anxiously. “Hard to tell here.”

“Long enough for the beta-blockers to wear off, then.” It was ironic. All that fuss about trying to get to them both at once, and now that they were within reach he still couldn’t do anything about it. It was enough to make him grind his teeth.

His head was killing him. Dehydration? Malnutrition? Stress? All of the above and more, but he had to pull it together. They were relying on him. “All right. The plan—the plan is…” He trailed off, at a loss. He was effectively knocked down to normal right now, Allison’s new trick was unreliable, and there were a lot of well-trained enemies with some very big guns.

“Options!” Luther said authoritatively into the awkward silence, making Allison and Five jump. He almost laughed, because that was exactly how Dad had sounded during training. How many times had Dad given them a scenario, and then demanded they formulate attack plans? But even something as simple as childhood training was comforting right now. “We sit here and wait for Five to gain enough energy to jump us out.”

“Not an option,” Five shot it down immediately, jerking a thumb at the security cameras looming in the high corners of the cells. “They’ll be rallying as we speak. It’d be like shooting fish in a barrel.” Actually, he suspected the Temp Corps hadn’t made an appearance yet only because they were being cautious about Allison.

He’d really have to thank her later. Here he’d been pinning all his hopes on zugzwang. Meanwhile, Allison had tossed the chessboard straight out the window. Their chances were still too poor to be worth calculating, but it was a hell of a lot better than they had been.

“Option two,” Allison chimed in, a slight edge to her voice that said she thought they were being a bit stupid. “We go get the beta-blockers.”

Five made a face, giving in and pressing the flat of his palm against his eye to try to quell the headache. While it was a logical move on paper it was impossible in reality. “We’d have to find the lab, and wandering around is going to get us killed.”

“We don’t need to find the lab, we just go back to the testing room.” She corrected impatiently. “That doctor’s been leaving his medical bag in there, didn’t you see?”

Five blinked. He hadn’t noticed Heimann storing anything at the terminal, but he had to admit the ends of the last few sessions were pretty much a blur. “That changes things,” he said slowly. It would still be dangerous and they’d still probably get gunned down before they made it halfway there, but he couldn’t think of anything better.

“Option two it is,” Luther held out a hand to assist him down from the table. Five ignored him and slid down unaided, regretting it a little when his formerly-broken leg ached sharply. He hissed and shifted weight off it, wobbling heavily before he managed to balance himself with a hand on the table.

“Can you walk?” Luther asked doubtfully, eyeing him.

“I’m fine,” Five dismissed, though even he had to admit it was a strong word in this case. He hadn’t felt this unsteady since the early days in the apocalypse when he hadn’t prepared for winter well enough and nearly starved to death. The Handler had deigned to feed the other two during one of his sedations, but she’d said Five must be fine if he had the energy for escape attempts. Between the lack of calories and the excessive power use, his stomach felt concave.

Well, he was used to ignoring hunger. His body might be begging to lie back down again but he wouldn’t let it slow him down. He’d have to limp, but now that he was standing his footing felt sure enough.

At least, until his powers swept through him without warning in a corrective jump, and his legs buckled beneath him. The only thing that kept him from dropping to the floor was his grip on the table and, a moment later, Allison and Luther grabbing at him to keep him upright.

“I’m fine,” He insisted harshly, pushing their hands away as soon as he stabilized again. As much as he could appreciate the healing effects, right now he’d turn off the corrective jumps if he could. He needed the energy more. “We don’t have time for this.”

“I could carry you if—”

“Number One I will _stab_ you—oh, speaking of…” He trailed off, hobbling over to the nearest corpse and bending stiffly to relieve it of its weapons. An M27 automatic rifle, a glock, and a simple switchblade. It felt good to be armed again, it settled his nerves a little. The other two followed his lead and looted the other bodies, though Luther looked a bit uneasy holding a gun. Well, nearly dying from a gunshot wound could do that to you. Besides, they’d all had some training with guns as kids, but Dad had mostly focused on their powers. It had probably been awhile since either of them had handled any sort of firearm.

No time to do a refresher course on gun safety, they had to get moving before someone got the bright idea to just chuck a grenade into the cells and call it good. Five moved to the door and crouched down, ignoring his protesting leg as best as he could. He propped the gun up on his knee since he couldn’t trust his bad harm to handle the recoil. He could remember doing a job like this once, taking out a news reporter without risking being caught on film; they’d needed to be able to pin the job on someone else. Drug lord, mafia, something like that. He couldn’t remember her name, but he’d done it just like this—opening the door a crack with his body hidden behind it, angling his gun blindly and firing a quick spray of shots where she was the mostly likely to be walking.

Of course, the news reporter hadn’t had a gun to shoot back with, and there were apparently a lot of guards in the hallway. Almost immediately the sharp retort of gunfire slammed into the metal door and the frame. It hardly mattered, Five was well-protected in this position and the rifle was good for suppression fire. You didn’t need to be accurate when you could just spit a hail of bullets down a hallway.

It was over soon enough. A cautious peek around the doorjamb revealed nothing but dead soldiers. This whole thing was really making him doubt the efficacy of the Temp Corps, honestly. “Highly trained my ass,” he muttered to himself. This could have gone down very differently if they’d had the intelligence to camp out around the corner, instead of sitting like morons in the middle of the hall. They must have assumed Option One, or maybe they didn’t think Five was still physically capable of putting up a fight. Either way, their mistake.

Still, there were only a dozen bodies out there. It was hard to estimate how many more were left in the compound, but this was likely just the handful that was nearby enough to get here so far. He should have destroyed the cameras, he realized belatedly. Now whoever was watching would know for certain they’d left the room. On the bright side, he couldn’t recall seeing surveillance in the hallways, so they’d have some chance of getting through this without having to take out the whole battalion.

“Let’s get going,” he said as Allison and Luther lowered their hands from their ears. Whoops, he really was too used to working alone. Probably should have warned them before opening fire.

“My ears are ringing,” Luther said plaintively, wiggling a finger in one.

“Delicate,” Five remarked distractedly, swapping the depleted rifle for an unused one. The noise hadn’t done anything good for his headache either, but having a mission made it easier to ignore. He could tell his current energy wasn’t going to last for long, though, so he needed to put it to use while he could.

He thought about taking along the extra weapons, but they were more likely to slow them down than to help. Besides, if they got into a position where that much extra ammunition was needed, they were dead anyway. “Into the hornet’s nest we go,” he quipped, moving to slip out the door, only to be pulled up short when Allison snagged the back of his shirt collar. “Let go,” he snapped automatically, twisting out the hold.

“You are not taking point,” Allison said firmly.

“Don’t be stupid, I’m a better shot than either of you.”

“You can also barely walk.”

“I’m _fine_ —”

“You can waste time arguing,” she interrupted, raising an imperious brow. “Or you can accept the inevitable and let us lead.”

He shut his mouth with a click, scowling. Allison was easily his most stubborn sibling, by dint of being used to getting whatever she wanted. She was crossing her arms and scowling right back at him. She was right—even if he could browbeat her into seeing sense, it would waste a lot of time. Besides, Five knew bad odds when he saw them; Allison would absolutely win the argument.

“Whatever,” he capitulated with bad grace, stepping back from the doorway.

“Thank you,” she said grandly and swept past him, head held high. Five sourly gestured Luther to go in front as well. Luther gave him a half-apologetic shrug and hefted a tiny-seeming rifle in his big hands.

The hallway was quiet as they picked their way through the bodies. It seemed to stretch ominously, an unprotected space that made his skin crawl. The route to the testing room would be several long minutes of walking with many twists, turns, and intersecting halls. They didn’t know where the soldiers were being housed when they weren’t on rotation. In short, plenty of opportunity for ambush.

In fact, he was realizing the complete futility of the argument. They could be approached from behind just as easily as an encounter in front, and there was precious little they could do about it. He hoped their saving grace would be the fact that the Temp Corps was obviously accustomed for more straightforward shock-and-awe missions, not hunting superpowered aliens through a rabbit warren with an unknown destination.

He hobbled gamely behind Allison and Luther. It was difficult to accept their less-than-human origins, though he hadn’t had much time to devote thought to it. A small part of him was curious—what would Dad’s people be like? All he really knew was that the Handler had said they were extremely hierarchal, they had powers but not to the extent of the Hargreeves children, and they couldn’t breathe oxygen.

How much of his family’s dysfunction was due to their DNA and how much was due to upbringing? It was easy enough to consolidate Dad with the idea of being an alien, but then again, how much of his personality was caused by species verses the apparent insanity of time travel? He’d apparently been in love at some point, but the father Five knew hadn’t been capable of emotions like that—at least not with his children.

He’d looked human enough though. If there were any other physiological differences other than breathing, he must have bio-engineered his children and himself to fit in better.

But as much as he was curious about his newfound relatives, Five could tell he was also going to be deeply furious when he had a chance to really think about it. Seeding unstable hyperpowered child soldiers into a lush, green world just to burn it all down, just to create a blank slate for colonization, putting Five through the horrors of apocalypse and then ruthlessly trying to do it again when he managed to screw up their plans…

Hobbling along behind Luther’s broad back, he supposed that from their perspective hardly any time at all must have passed between implementing their terraforming plans and Five’s interference. After all, they were working from the vantage of thousands of years in the future.

If they got out of here, he had a lot of work ahead of him. If the Handler was right they had a grace period of about ten years before anyone could use the briefcases to his era without risking space-time damage. He needed to find a way to make that block more permanent, or they’d just be doing this all over again each decade. Five had avoided Dad’s journals out of distaste until now, but it might be time to see what the old man had to say.

“That’s far enough,” The Handler’s voice rang out, interrupting his thoughts. Five reacted hastily, alarm blaring through him. He flung open one of the doors in the hallway and tugged his siblings behind it just in time for a bullet to ping off the metal. He glanced around the edge, trying to catch sight of her. All he could see was the muzzle of a pistol around the corner of an intersecting hallway and a small compact mirror on the floor before another shot forced him back under cover. Unfortunately, she used to be an assassin as well, and a damn good one. She knew better than to give him anything to shoot at.

Luther nudged him and whispered, “Can you get her?”

Five shook his head, biting the inside of his cheek against the helpless feeling, then stiffened at the sound of boots in the distance behind them.

“Hear that, Five?” she called out. “You’re quite trapped. Play nice and drop your weapons.”

The frustration put a snarl on his face. This would be a non-issue if he had his powers. Just a quick jump down the hallway, take her out before she could react. He may as well wish the moon would fall on her, it was equally as possible in his current condition. “Can I appeal to your sense of humanity to let us go?” he stalled.

Her laugh echoed against the white walls. “Even if I had that sense, you’re not human.”

“No, I guess not,” he muttered. Allison looked torn between facing the Handler’s direction or the fast-approaching sounds of the soldiers. Luther was so tense he might accidentally break the gun in his hands. Think, Five told himself viciously. Think fast or your family is going to die again. Options! Dad’s voice rang stridently through his head.  
Storm the Handler and hope she suddenly forgot how to aim. No, she’d gun them down before they took five steps.

Stay here and take pot shots at her. Could work if they had Diego with them to curve the trajectory, but she was too well hidden, and they had no protection for when the soldiers came up from behind. No.

Go back the way they came and try to shoot their way through the soldiers. No, unlike the previous batch this one would be ready for an assault.

Hide in the room connected to the door they were hiding behind. He glanced inside—it looked like some sort of small breakroom. Fridge, table, chairs. Just the one exit. No, they’d still be trapped.

Surrender, and they’d kill Allison since they couldn’t control her anymore. No.

Five chewed at the inside of his cheek anxiously. Luther’s powers were useless in this situation. “Allison, can you rumor her from here?”

"Try to get angry," Luther suggested nervously.

She shook her head doubtfully. He knew her powers worked best at closer range and when she had eye contact, that there were strict limits on what she could do. He could remember being part of her training a few times, stepping further and further away at Dad’s command until she could no longer affect him. The hallway was long; the Handler had to be more than thirty meters away. “I heard a rumor you showed yourself,” she shouted experimentally, and Five could tell she was straining to put every ounce of power into it that she could.

There was a pause, and Five risked another glance around the door. A bullet nearly took his nose off. Fuck, no go. No on retreating, no on advancing, no on surrender, no on Luther’s powers, no on Allison’s powers. No on—oh, that could work. Maybe. Kind of. If it had been long enough. He’d have to be fast about it, have to distract her or she’d notice.

He took a breath and concentrated. He could do it. He had to.

No time to explain to the other two, the soldiers would arrive any minute. “I’m coming out,” he shouted, tossing the rifle to the side with a loud clatter and walking around the door. Allison hissed out a warning and reached for him, but she was slow with surprise and he twisted out of reach, holding his hands up as he moved into the hallway. The angle was painful for his bad arm but he kept it raised as high as he could.

The gamble paid off, the Handler didn’t shoot him as soon as he was exposed. There was a brief burst of static and he thought he heard her say something, too quietly to make out. Giving orders to the troops, he assumed, because the noise of their boots stalled after a moment.

“What’s the trick?” She demanded after a moment.

“No trick,” Five replied. He didn’t have to feign the tired slump in his shoulders, or the heavy limp as he took another few steps forward.

“Stay there,” she ordered, the gun not wavering around the corner of the hall, and he halted. Could he do it at this distance? Hell, he wasn’t sure if he could do it at all. “The other two as well, toss your weapons aside. Now, if you please.”

“Do as she says,” Five murmured, not looking back.

“But Five—”

“Do it,” he repeated. “We don’t have any other options.”

There was a mutinous silence behind him, but to his relief their guns joined his on the floor. After a moment the Handler stepped out from behind the corner, her pistol still trained on him. If he’d ever had doubts about her abilities as an assassin this would have wiped them clean; she moved like a consummate professional. “How reasonable of you,” she commented, sounding almost disappointed. “I thought you’d be giving me an excuse to take Patrick’s kill from him.”

“My apologies. What now?”

“I was considering shooting you anyway,” she admitted easily, a half-smile pulling at the scar on her cheek, “But I suppose my career wouldn’t survive it.”

“And the others?”

“Your brother can stick around, but you know as well as I do that your sister’s a liability now. Five, dear, you should never have crossed me.” She tapped her shoe on the floor, contemplative. “What do you think, should I make you watch her die again?”

There was a muffled noise behind the door, but before Luther could do anything rash in response to that revelation, Five concentrated and pulled, powers flashing like a beacon around his raised hands. Nothing seemed to happen but he was already moving, ducking away even as the Handler squeezed off a shot, the bullet skating against his side. A split second later and he had the glock pulled from the waistband of his pants, aiming.

Her trigger finger moved again and he flinched instinctively, because her aim was dead-on this time and he didn’t have any hope of avoiding it—

The empty click echoed in the hallway. Her face contorted with surprise.

Five took his shot.

She went down in a spray of gore and he had a moment of disbelief that this plan had worked. Then he limped over as quickly as he could to confirm the kill. A clean headshot, a dark hole right through the mess of scratches on her forehead. Her eyes looked stunned even in death.

“What just happened?” Luther asked slowly as they left the cover of the door.

Five huffed out a breath, wishing he could just sit down. He opened his non-dominant hand to reveal a bullet, shining innocently. “Stole it,” he said simply.

“From her gun?” Allison said incredulously. “I thought you said you didn’t have enough energy!”

“For teleporting people.” He corrected, giving her a look. “Inorganics are a lot easier, you know that. Something like this takes hardly any energy at all. Anything bigger would have been impossible though.” He let it fall to the floor with a quiet clink, running a hand across his face tiredly. All the activity hadn’t made his headache any better. “Wasn’t sure I could do that much, but I got lucky.”

She opened her mouth, no doubt to chastise him for leaving it to luck, but he forestalled it with a quick shake of his head. “Look, it was the best option and it worked out. Let’s just…keep going, all right?”

Allison nearly looked ready to argue regardless, but Luther put a hand on her shoulder and she stopped short, taking a closer look at Five. He wasn’t sure what he must look like, but he knew he was just about at the end of his rope. Christ, he felt like an invalid. “You’re bleeding again,” she said finally, grumpy about it.

Right, he’d forgotten about that. He gingerly prodded the shallow wound grazing his ribs. It was bleeding, but only sluggishly. “It’s fine—I mean it,” he insisted when they inspected him doubtfully. “It’s not serious. We’ve got bigger things to worry about. Let’s go already, do you not understand that we’re on a time limit here?”

“All right,” Luther allowed, and promptly turned around back to the direction they came.

“Luther, what are you doing? Am I just talking to myself here?!”

Luther ignored him and ducked into the room they’d taken shelter by. There was a muffled _aha_ of success, and he reappeared clutching a couple cold water bottles and some sort of wrapped granola bar. He promptly handed the bar to Five, whose stomach growled audibly.

“Oh, good idea,” Allison said approvingly.

Time constraints be damned. Five stuffed the granola in his face, barely chewing in his haste to get some calories down. Luther cracked a water bottle open before passing it off, and Five drained half of it in seconds, forcing himself to stop before he made himself sick. Allison and Luther shared the other bottle. He had to admit, he did feel a bit better.

“Now we can go,” Luther said, satisfied. They gathered their discarded weapons and Five let them take point again without argument, content to trail after them for now. The Handler’s eyes stared at him as he passed by.

For all that she was a crazy psychopath, she’d still been the one to pull him out of the apocalypse. Part of him felt like a debt was owed for that, even after everything she’d put him through.

Oh well. He had a lot of debts hanging on his head, and most of them to better people than her. He certainly didn’t regret it. Still, out of a sort of professional courtesy, he bent down and closed her eyes. Then he straightened and hurried after his siblings as they moved deeper into the compound.


	7. Chapter 7

Five was beginning to reconsider Luther’s offer of carrying him. The granola bar had given him a brief burst of strength that he suspected was more placebo than any real energy, but hurrying through the compound had quickly used it up. His leg ached so fiercely that he half-expected it to snap under him again. The two gunshot wounds were distractingly painful, and his headache had officially progressed to migraine-levels.

In short, Five was a mess and getting worse with every passing minute. Still, pride and stubbornness kept him from asking for help. In any case Allison and Luther needed their hands free to wield their rifles. He could do this. It was just a bit further.

Except it wasn’t. “Turn here,” Five ordered wearily as the sound of boots echoed through against the walls. The grace period after the Handler’s death had only lasted a minute or two—cut off the monster’s head and there was still the rest of the body to deal with, unfortunately. The TempCorps had managed to organize a sort of haphazard sweep to try to flush them out, and they’d had to abandon their original route.

Five’s spatial recognition was excellent, but he was having to strain to keep them on track as they were forced into detour after detour, barely keeping out of sight of the troops. They’d been insanely lucky so far to be able to keep a half-step ahead, but it didn’t do them any good if they couldn’t reach the testing room. Every turn seemed to lead them further away.

The compound was surprisingly huge, even just from what they’d seen so far. It all looked identical, so much so that someone without his direction sense would have been unable to tell if they’d doubled back or not. He couldn’t recall seeing anything like it when the Handler had given him the tour during his brief career as a paper pusher. Either she’d somehow kept him away from this area, or more likely it was a completely separate location from the rest of the Commission.

He caught Luther sneaking another glance back at him. Five did his best to exude health, wishing he had Allison’s acting chops. It rankled, being the physical weak link—the least he could do was keep his siblings from thinking he was going to collapse in the next couple seconds. Even if it felt like the only thing keeping him on his feet was sheer willpower, they didn’t need to know that.

“Turn,” Five said again when he caught the sound a patrol approaching them from an intersecting hallway further ahead. If there was one benefit to the awful migraine, it was the noise sensitivity. He’d always had sharp ears but the more warning they had the better. Still, he was finding it hard to concentrate. If they made it out of here he was going to sleep for a week.

He wiped surreptitiously at the sweat forming on his brow. He’d blame it on the exertion but he knew even this body was in better shape than that. Allison and Luther didn’t look tired at all. Stressed, shoulders tense and grips tight around their rifles, but not tired.

In fact, Allison looked more comfortable with a gun than he would have suspected. A few of her films had been action flicks, he recalled—he’d even seen one with Vanya before she left. Some sort of godawful superspy plotline, but Allison had at least made the character believable. Something in her bearing, in her confident and natural movements. He wondered if they had to retrain her or if it all came from Dad’s particular brand of childrearing. Or maybe she’d done more personal training after she’d left the Academy; he knew she took a regular kickboxing class at least.

Luther looked more awkward, for all that he’d apparently continued doing missions long after the rest of the Hargreeves children had dispersed. Five thought he could remember Luther getting bad scores in their live weapons tests. One of the few things Diego could beat him at actually, to Luther’s intense displeasure. Five was privately convinced Diego had used his power to cheat, but there was no proving it.

_Pay attention_ , hissed an inner voice that sounded a bit like Dolores, and he snapped to focus, eyes widening. The footsteps behind them were still steadily approaching, having taken the same turn they did. More concerning, there were now sounds in the intersecting corridor ahead of them, the clatter of boots practically ringing in his ears now that he was concentrating.  
No other hallways branched off of this one. They were stuck in a pincer attack, even if the two prongs didn’t actually know the quarry was trapped.

“Shit,” he whispered. Allison and Luther stiffened too, catching the sounds a moment later.

With a speed that belied his bulk, Luther moved before Five could begin to formulate any sort of defensive plan. Five found himself being hustled inside one of the metal doors, which was hastily shut behind them with a loud click. “The patrols have to be checking these rooms,” he protested. Luther’s hand on his shoulder was tense nearly to the point of bruising, and he wriggled out of the grip with a wince. “They can’t be that stupid.”

“Do you have a better idea?” Luther said tightly.

Five opened his mouth to retort, but Allison suddenly inhaled sharply, cutting him off. He whirled around and was stunned to see the doctor standing before them, adjusting his glasses in a befuddled way.

The area appeared to be some sort of…well, a living room, if he had to put a name to it. Minimalistic, but it had a desk overflowing with paperwork and a disassembled briefcase, a couch, a few bookcases. He could see a doorway to another room and what looked like the corner of a bed. Heimann himself was obviously dressed-down, tie missing and the top two buttons of his shirt undone. For all that he’d put Five through the proverbial wringer the last few days, he didn’t look like much to speak of.

“I’m unarmed,” he said blandly, eyeing their raised guns with disdain.

“Keep quiet,” Luther barked out, and Allison shushed him nervously. The metal doors were thick, but not so thick noise couldn’t carry. He winced and lowered his voice. “Just…don’t move.”

“Actually,” Five said thoughtfully as his heart rate returned to something less panicky, “This might be a bit of luck. Allison, you feel up for a rumor?”

She opened her mouth quizzically but Heimann interrupted, spreading his hands in a peaceable gesture. “There’s no need for that. I’ll cooperate fully. I’ve no wish to experience mind control again, or getting shot for that matter.”

“Sucks to be you,” Five said unsympathetically, but it brought him up short for a moment. For all his apparent willingness, Heimann was surprisingly steady. Unruffled, even—far more unaffected by becoming a hostage than anyone had the right to be. He didn’t carry himself like an assassin or a soldier; Five would be surprised if he’d had an ounce of combat training. So where was the confidence coming from? How could he be so casual?

He’d thought it before, during the tests, but the doctor’s eyes really were like Dad’s. Like nothing could surprise him, or everything perpetually on the verge of disappointment. Even now with three guns bristling at him, he seemed like he was barely in the same room, as if the guns were just water pistols and this was a game that he’d grown bored of. Like death was something hardly worth worrying about.

“Are you one of the aliens?” Five demanded, drawing bewildered stares from his siblings. Heimann just sneered. “No—then tell me, what body are you on?”

“The fourth,” Heimann said easily. Five rocked back onto his heels, a little stunned even though it was his own theory.

“I don’t think I’m following,” Allison said tightly.

“I thought it was weird, that’s all.” Five shrugged uneasily. “A normal human making something like the briefcases? I couldn’t do it. It took me half a lifetime just to figure out how to go back in time, and I already had powers. The Hander said the Commission’s got teleporters, too. You must have been able to study them to get this far, but that would take time. A lot of time.”

“It was my life’s work,” Heimann agreed.

“Multiple lives’ work. Something like three hundred years, huh?”

“I confess I’ve lost count.”

“This is interesting and all,” Luther interjected, looking bored. Honestly, his brother was such a philistine. “But is it important right now?”

“No,” Five admitted, running a hand through his hair and putting his brain back on track. “Not really. Allison, rumor the good doctor here, please.”

“I told you there’s no need—”

“I wasn’t asking you.” He said bluntly, and Heimann subsided with a sigh. Allison was fidgeting, opening her mouth and then closing it again. “What are you waiting for?”

“Sorry,” she said with a grimace. “It just seems kind of mean rumoring a defenseless old man.”

Five rolled his eyes in exasperation. He knew Allison used her powers more reluctantly ever since the implosion of her relationship with her ex-husband. Her newfound morality was probably something to be commended. But he’d never had much use for morality. In any case, unarmed old man or not, Heimann was still a dangerous enemy who’d nearly killed Five with his tests. He wasn’t about to waste sympathy. “Really? You’re going to let him open that door and just hope he keeps his word?”

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it,” she snapped back, incensed. “I just don’t _like_ it.”

“You’ll get over it,” he told her bluntly.

Luther put a consoling hand on her back, and she squared her shoulders. “I heard a rumor you forgot we were here,” she said firmly. Five could see the doctor’s face go a little slack as the compulsion took root. He looked around him in vague bewilderment before shaking it off and ambling toward the bookshelf, eyes passing over them without registering. It was always a little disconcerting watching her powers at work. All the Hargreeves children had a few too many memories of having their minds commandeered, under Dad’s orders or otherwise, to be comfortable with it.

But then, it sounded like Heimann had experience with rumors too, or some sort of mind control. Five supposed that if the Commission had teleporters, they also had the genetic precursors to the rest of his siblings. Just weaker, if the Handler was to be believed. Part of him was avidly interested in what a whole society of their powers would look like—it was bad enough with just seven of them in one house.

The larger part of him would dearly like to jump a bomb onto their spaceship, but even Five wasn’t arrogant enough to try to jump thousands of years into the future.

The sound of a brisk knock made them all flinch, echoing metallically through the room. Five jolted into action, silently pulling Luther and Allison into the bedroom. He noticed another dismantled briefcase was strewn over the bedstand. He didn’t dare risk being spotted peeking around the corner so they’d have to do this blind, but he left the door open as he squeezed in past Luther.

Out of sight, Five allowed himself to sit heavily in a padded chair in the corner of the room, biting back a groan of relief to get off his bad leg for a moment. He kept his rifle draped across his knees for easy access, though he knew if the TempCorps decided to search the apartment they were as good as dead.

Luther and Allison were crammed between the wall and the bed, looking toward the doorway grimly. Five took the opportunity of their distraction to press a hand to the wound in his side that the Handler had given him, wincing at the sting. He hadn’t lied; it wasn’t a serious injury, but all the moving around they’d been doing meant it was still oozing blood. Probably could do with a stitch or three. The room was dimly lit at least, which was doing wonders for his persistent headache.

Another knock and he could hear Heimann grumbling as he shuffled lightly over the carpet, then the click of the door opening.

“Well?” Heimann demanded impatiently.

A moment’s pause and a rustle that Five assumed was someone removing his helmet in order to talk. Then a stranger’s voice said, “Sir, delta group reporting in.”

“You don’t report to me,” the doctor snapped. “Don’t bother me.”

“I’m sorry sir, the Handler’s dead. You’re the only management left. Protocol says—”

“Fine, fine. Just tell me what you want.”

“The prisoners have escaped,” the soldier began hesitantly, as if he wasn’t sure how much information Heimann already had.

“Yes, I heard the radio report. Get to the _point_.”

“Sir.” Five grinned at the nervousness in the soldier’s voice. Dealing with temperamental superiors was a bitch, he though unsympathetically. “We’re doing a sweep of the rooms. We’re here to check your area for intruders and put you under protection.”

Heimann scoffed. “Nonsense. They certainly aren’t here.”

“The agent from the corrections department can teleport,” the soldier pointed out delicately, “We can’t be certain he didn’t sneak past you.”

Five shifted nervously, cursing the lack of time they’d had to plan this. Allison hadn’t rumored him not to give access. She caught his eye, obviously thinking the same thing.  
“Not in his current condition, I assure you.”

“Still, protocol—”

“That’s enough,” Heimann barked out sharply, voice steeped in irritation. “I have several active briefcases in the middle of delicate adjustments. If you wish to waste time muddling about my quarters, I can’t guarantee your safety.”

There was a tense silence as they all recalled the last person to touch an experimental briefcase. Luther edged a little further away from the dismantled briefcase on the bed, looking pale.

The soldier cleared his throat. “Understood. On your orders we won’t search this room.” Five slumped into the chair with relief. “Should I leave men for your protection?”

“No. Go back to your patrols. Try to capture my test subject alive, if possible.”

“Yes sir.”

The sound of boots moving away was cut off by the perfunctory closing click of the door. Five used the rifle as a crutch to lever himself back up, leg protesting as he put weight on it again. His powers may have healed the worst of the break, but he suspected there was some sort of fracture still.

Allison peeked out into the hall to make sure the coast was clear before letting out an explosive breath. “That was lucky,” she said, shooting for flippant but just sounding stressed. “What now? Do we hide out here until they give up?”

“Too much risk,” Luther shook his head. “They’ll circle back eventually.”

“This is good for us, actually.” Five commented, leaning on the rifle contemplatively.

“There is no possible way this is a good situation.”

“I’ll take what I can get at this point. We’re in covered territory now, get it? These halls have already been checked, so they should stay clear until they do a second sweep. We can go straight to the testing room.”

Allison bit her lip, looking at the briefcase on the bed. “Can’t you just fix one of the briefcases and zap us out of here?”

Five grinned toothily. “Sure. You want to risk me getting it wrong?”

“Nope,” Luther said immediately, looking ill. “Let’s just…leave the murder boxes alone.”

Speaking of—he switched tracks abruptly. “I need your help with something before we can go. Luther, grab all the pillows and blankets you can find. Allison, get Heimann in here.”

They both gave him a confused glance at the change in topic, but exited the bedroom. Luther came back shortly with the couch cushions and a throw blanket, and Allison guided in a freshly-rumored Heimann beside her, docile as a lamb.

“What’s this about, Five?”

Five hesitated, then shrugged. No way to make it sound nice. “I’m gonna kill him.”

Ah, how things had changed from when he mentioned murder the first time to Luther. He still looked uneasy about it, but he didn’t immediately start throwing Five’s guns out the nearest window. Such progress.

Allison’s stubborn new morals were a different story. “What? He can’t do anything to us anymore. He’s just an old man.”

“An old man with too much knowledge of my powers,” he reminded her. “He hasn’t figured it out completely yet, but with enough time? Not worth the risk.”

“I can just make him forget everything.”

“If they could recover the Handler’s memories after a bullet went through her head, I’m willing to bet they can rebuild from a living body even easier.”

“If that’s the case, killing him won’t make a difference either,” she pointed out, crossing her arms.

“It will if I mangle his brain badly enough,” he said bluntly. Neither Luther nor Allison seemed to know how to respond to that. It was so hard to tell what types of violence they would turn their nose up at. After all, they’d all had their first kills at a young age. It was inevitable, with Luther throwing robbers off multi-story buildings and Allison persuading criminals to shoot each other.

Unlike them, however, Five’s first kill had been up close and personal, a knife he’d nicked off of Diego planted into a man’s heart before he could take out a hostage. Then all the scorched corpses in the apocalypse, and mark after mark during his career with the Commission…well, one way or another he’d had plenty of time to accustom himself to gore.

“Ah. I suspect I’ve mind controlled,” Heimann said abruptly, and Five completely lost his train of thought, staring with shock as the doctor peered around the room.  
He’d never seen anyone break through Allison’s rumors. Frankly, he hadn’t through it was possible—he’d never managed it himself, after all.

Allison’s hand flew to her mouth in stunned surprise and Luther dropped his pillows to the floor. But now that Five was looking more closely, Heimann’s gaze never paused on them. Not a flicker of recognition.

“I am missing time,” the doctor announced, apparently to the room at large. “I don’t recall coming into this room, nor is there any reason for me to be here. Before, too—I was already standing when delta squad knocked, but can’t remember leaving my workbench. I can only assume at least the female prisoner is here, if not all three.”

“Well that’s creepy,” Luther muttered.

Five let out a strained laugh, equally unnerved. Heimann may not have truly broken free, but it was too close for comfort. “Allison, anyone ever logic their way out of a rumor before?

“Never,” she said immediately. “They’re supposed to—normally things get a little fuzzy, I guess. The person’s mind fills in whatever gaps they’ve forgotten, forces things to seem normal.”

Was this a product of Heimann’s intellect, or some unknown effect of living several centuries? Impossible to say.

“You’re likely here to kill me.” Heimann gestured vaguely, looking mildly put out by the idea. “I would prefer not to die again just yet. If it makes any difference, I haven’t yet discovered the flaw in my briefcases.”

Five shook his head sharply at Allison’s hopeful look. “It doesn’t change anything. Important guy like him, they’ll definitely bring him back. If management resurrects him with the knowledge he’s got now, he can just pick up the research where he left off. I’ve got to set them back to square one or we’re fucked.”

“What do you need us for, anyway?”

“Soundproofing,” Five said succinctly. “Are you going to help or not?”

She bit her lip. Five had to admit Heimann didn’t exactly look like a threat, waiting placidly despite expecting his own execution, but in many ways he was more dangerous than the Handler had ever been.

“Allison, it’s all right,” Luther interjected. “Five and I can do this, right?” Five shrugged. Two sets of hands would be better but he could probably make do. “Right. So just wait in the living room and we’ll take care of it.”

“I don’t like letting you do the dirty work any better,” she snapped, then irritably heaved a sigh. “Fine, I’ll help. Let’s just do this.”

“If it’s any consolation,” Five told her, “They’ll still probably bring him back. He’s important. They’ll just use the last…save file, or whatever you want to call it.” She gave him a look that said it didn’t help at all. Well, he’d never been much good at consoling. “Get him on the bed.”

In short order Allison had Heimann safely packing away the briefcase and laying down on the thin, military-style sheets, after Five commandeered the comforter. The doctor reclined comfortably, hands crossed loosely over his stomach. “And now I’m in bed,” he noted idly, eyes still a little hazy. “Why this room? Ah, furthest from the hallway. Most insulated.”

“Not insulated enough,” Five amended, even though Heimann couldn’t hear him.

“Oh,” said Luther, looking at the pillows and blankets they’d amassed. “I get it.”

Gunshots were _loud_. Five’s older body had been half-deaf in one ear from it, and more than one assassination had been reliant on close combat because of the need for discretion. A knife for subtlety, a gun for surety—so the manual said. Even as a kid he’d known the movie thing about shooting through a pillow to muffle sound was stupid. Sound waves didn’t work like that.

But in a closed room, under a pile of soft objects? Well, it’d still be loud, but hopefully not loud enough for the patrols to hear. “Knock him out, Allison.”

“I heard a rumor you fell asleep,” Allison ordered, looking relieved. It wasn’t strictly necessary, but he figured it’d make her a little more comfortable. A moment later and the doctor let out a slight snore. Can’t logic yourself out of sleep, Five supposed, no matter how much of a creepy scientist you were.

“All right,” Five rolled up the remains of his sleeves and checked the safety on his glock. He placed the barrel firmly against Heimann’s temple. “Pile it all around his head, tight as you can.” The mass of blankets was wrapped around, then the bed pillows, and finally the couch cushions, until the doctor’s head and half of Five’s arm was hidden from view. Heimann was probably half-suffocated already.

Luther and Allison each kept pressure on the couch cushions, nervously trading glances . Five sympathized, he really did. It was hard the first time you took a life in cold blood—even as an accessory. Had to be done, though, and at least the pillows would spare them the view.

“Watch your fingers,” he said, then opened fire. They all flinched at the bang, loud even under the muffling cloth, but Five quickly proceeded to empty the magazine. Seventeen rounds—no, sixteen left after the Handler. Each time he pulled the trigger he changed the angle of the barrel, spreading out the damage as best he could. His tired body ached with each recoil, the vibration rattling his bones. A dark spread of blood was leaking into the mattress at the edge of the cushions.

Finally it was done, and the hammer fell with an almost inaudible click at the last dry fire. Five left the gun under the soundproofing and withdrew his hand, wiping it off quickly on a corner of the bedsheet. He didn’t bother to look under the blankets.

“Is it—”

“Don’t think about it,” he interrupted firmly, cutting Luther off. Both of them looked pale. He’d gotten through his first few assassinations by getting so drunk he could barely remember the kill, but they didn’t have that luxury now. Luther and Allison would have to rely on a different sort of distraction. Survival would do well enough. “Let’s get moving. I don’t think that could have been heard from the hallway, but patrols could start doubling back at any time.”

In their semi-stunned state, Five was able to herd them in front of him, practically pushing them out the door. He had a strong policy of out of sight, out of mind when it came to corpses, and hoped it would work well for them too.

He’d almost made it out of the bedroom himself when his powers shivered uncontrollably through him. Five grunted with surprise and only the hasty slap of his hand against the doorjamb kept him from braining himself against the wall when his legs gave out under him. His head throbbed so heavily he couldn’t see for a moment, blinking the stars away even as Luther rushed to help support him.

“All right?” Luther asked as Five managed to get his feet under him again.

“Peachy,” he snarked. God, the healing really wasn’t worth the energy drain. What were the corrective jumps even accomplishing? Whatever nanoscopic errors they were targeting would be better off waiting until he was, oh, not running for his life.

Luther just quirked a half-smile. “Could still carry you, y’know.”

“Cold day in hell,” Five swatted his hands away, forcing himself to stand straight.

“I carried you when you were drunk that one time.”

“Yeah, well,” Five grumbled as he exited the room, closing the door behind him. “Apocalypse, hell, same thing. Let’s _go_ already.”

“Shouldn’t we check for notes?” Allison asked, looking a bit better now that they were away from the body.

Five paused. He should have thought about that. Just because Heimann wasn’t using his preferred method of scribbling on walls didn’t mean he hadn’t written his calculations down. He’d like to dispose of the briefcases too, but touching them was too risky. He’d never asked Klaus how he’d destroyed Hazel’s briefcase—it was probably a minor miracle he hadn’t been snipped out of the fabric of spacetime. Not odds he wanted to bet on.

With Allison’s help he quickly gathered up whatever loose papers they could find, filled with cramped lines of neat equations that made Five’s mouth water. A shame there wasn’t time to study anything. Heimann might have been an asshole willing to torture him half to death, but he was undoubtably a genius. Five could respect that.

Oh well. Luther took the pile of papers and they waited while he shredded them and flushed them down the toilet. Five stayed standing despite the siren call of the couch. He was tired enough that he might fall asleep if he sat down again.

Allison kept glancing at the closed bedroom door every few seconds, and he shifted his grip on his rifle uncertainly. What had Delores said after his first time, when even drunk he’d been sick and paralyzed with guilt? She’d asked for stories about his childhood. He’d told her how Vanya’s eyes lit up when she mastered a tricky song, the laugh she hid behind her hand when Five accidentally teleported into a mud puddle.

“It was for Claire,” he said quietly, the next time Allison fidgeted, and regretted it when her face twisted as though he’d stabbed her. Christ, he didn’t know how to do this at all.

“Don’t,” she snapped, voice cracking a little. “Don’t bring up my daughter when we just committed murder.”

Five threw up a hand in frustration, grinding his teeth. So much for trying to help; had he ever been this unreasonable? He’d have to ask Delores, though she’d probably just laugh at him. “It was self-defense! He was building the time-equivalent of a nuke, we had to do it!”

Luther came back into the living room, brushing paper dust from his hands, just in time to catch them glaring at each other. “Uh, is something new wrong?”

“No,” Allison said tersely. She turned away from both of them, shoulders tight, but that just put her facing the door again. Luther gestured imploringly at Five, and he tried to figure out how to discretely pantomime ‘I’m bad with people.’

“Why aren’t you more upset?” She demanded, spinning back around and interrupting their silent charade.

“About the doctor?”

“Yes, about the doctor, Jesus. We just killed him in his sleep!”

“Yeah, but he was a bad guy.”

Ah, good old Luther with his black-and-white world. Villains and heroes, good and bad. It was charming, when it wasn’t getting in the way of Five’s own goals. He wasn’t about to bring up that Heimann’s little comments about being mind-controlled before probably meant he hadn’t gone into the business completely willingly, lifetimes ago. The last thing he needed was another sibling having a breakdown.

“Let’s save the philosophy for later,” he said brusquely. Allison scowled at both of them, then abruptly seemed to deflate. She took one more look at the bedroom door, then squared her shoulders and quite visibly committed herself to ignoring it. If she still looked a bit haunted there was nothing they could do about it here.

“We should get going,” Luther agreed, fetching his rifle. “Five, any idea where we’re at now?”

Five mentally kicked himself. They should have asked Heimann what the best route to the testing room was. Too late now. “I can get us there. We’re not too far, I think.”

“You _think_?”

He rolled his eyes, sympathy all used up for the day. “Allison, don’t take your moral quandaries out on me. If you think you can do better, be my guest.”

“I’m just saying, you’ve been hit on the head a few times—"

“All right!” Luther interjected, stepping between them placatingly. “Don’t get testy; fight when we get home.”

“I wasn’t fighting—”

“It was just a question—”

“No arguing in enemy territory, that’s an order.”

Good old Luther, Five thought less charitably, subsiding with a scowl. Bossy as the day was long. Still, he let it go, not really having the energy for pointless arguments anyway. Allison would get over it, unless the TempCorps found them first. Either way the problem would solve itself.

Luther cracked open the metal door and peered out, then opened it fully when he deemed the coast was clear. He and Allison walked through, with Five limping sullenly behind them. The transition from the dimness of the doctor’s quarters into the bright florescent lighting sent an unbearable spike of sensitivity into his eyes. He winced and shielded them with his hand, squinting blindly while he adjusted.

When he could see again, they were watching him carefully. “You’ve got a headache,” Allison surmised bluntly, but less aggressively than before. “How long?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“You should tell us when something’s wrong, Five.” Luther chastised.

“Why, have you been hiding an aspirin all this time? Forget it. We need to backtrack a little, take the second right.”

Neither of them looked thrilled at not getting an answer, but they seemed to have taken the no-arguing rule to heart, which Five was relieved about. It was practically a family tradition, but he wasn’t feeling up to much more in the way of bickering.

He should have known better than to sit down earlier—the contrast just made him feel even more tired than before. His leg ached. The bullet hole in his arm ached. His head ached. He had who-knows how many micro-wounds that his powers hadn’t got around to fixing yet, sapping his energy.

Still, he limped along best as he was able as they moved back down the hallway. He was half-tempted to use the rifle as a walking stick again, but Luther really would try to carry him at that point. Five still had some pride left.

The stretch of hall was quiet, just as they expected. Best he could tell from the close encounters they’d had so far, the TempCorps was playing straight from the handbook, fanning out from some central location as each search area became safe ground. The barracks, maybe, or some sort of communications hub.

But they were being stymied by the twisting warren of the architecture. It was a double-edged sword; it kept Five from being able to bring them with certainty to their destination, but it also kept the soldiers from being able to _maintain_ safe ground. Too many doors, too many intersections, too many chances for the quarry to slip by.

At least, not without a lot more men than he thought they had at their disposal. If they had more units, this would have turned very quickly into a swarming maneuver. They were also being too cautious in his opinion, putting too many men in each patrol.

If Five were alone and running on all cylinders, he’d hunker down in a side room, waiting for the sound of boots, and shoot them behind the safety of the door. Just like he had from the cells. Then jump to another room, rinse and repeat. Find the communications hub and wreak havoc, nothing like a little sabotage to even the playing field.

A shame they didn’t have that option here. He’d done similar missions. Not normally so many people, of course, but they weren’t all as simple as point-and-shoot. Finesse was just as important for the job as target accuracy; an assassin didn’t last long without both. Hell, there was a whole subsection of jobs where killing wasn’t even the best way to go about it, where all it took was the right word in the right ear. Not that Five got sent on many of that type—he was a lot more talented at murder than diplomacy.

Words were always more the Handler’s style. There were rumors from her days in the field, of course, but you didn’t get promoted to recruitment without a silver tongue. He hadn’t needed much in the way of persuasion, he was a little embarrassed to recall, but not everyone would have been so easy to bring into the fold. Not everyone was quite so desperate.

He didn’t know her story, but he would kill to be a fly on the wall during Cha Cha’s recruitment. Five was willing to bet more than a little blood had been shed before she signed the contract. She’d always been feral like that.

He shook his head ruefully. Christ, it was hardly any time at all since he’d been one of them. Not even a full year, and here he was feeling nostalgic about it.

Ah. He’d been so lost in thought he’d fallen behind a bit, unconsciously slowing with his limp. Luther and Allison were forging ahead, maybe twenty feet in front of him.  
Just as he started to pick up the pace, something across the floor from an intersecting hallway, coming to rest halfway between Five and the others. The scraping sound it made as it skidded to a stop caught Allison and Luther’s attention, turning curiously.

The metal disc, about the size of a dinner plate, shone innocently under the harsh light. In the silence, it began to tick. Five’s heart leapt to his throat.

“Luther, shield Allison!” He shouted, backpedaling frantically. Luther, god bless his soldier soul, didn’t waste time on questions, immediately bundling up Allison and turning his back to the disk.

Five saw him curl his tall body like armor around her right before Five threw his own arms up protectively in front of his face.

There was a final, heavy click, and the world burned.


	8. Chapter 8

Everything was heat and noise and blinding light. It’s not that he passed out, but more that it was all so overwhelming his brain shut off for an indeterminable amount of time. He drifted in a stunned, mindless state until the data points coalesced into something more manageable.

Data point: he wasn’t standing, though he had no memory of falling.

Data point: the deafening bellow of the explosion had subsided into the roar of flame, the crunch of falling debris.

Data point: no, this wasn’t the apocalypse, no matter how familiar it might seem.

Five managed to crack his eyes open a slit, coughing on ash and smoke. The floor was cool beneath his cheek compared to the inferno in front of him. Support beams had fallen from the ceiling and the walls had caved in, all now viciously ablaze. It was completely impassable, and it was only by sheer luck that he hadn’t been crushed under it.

The blast must have blown him back, he thought dazedly. His mind was only working in fits and starts, unable to really piece together the situation. Everything seemed vaguely warped and slow, as though he were looking at it from deep underwater. His body was limp, tucked in on itself and resting on one side. He felt almost insensate, and he worried for a moment about spinal injuries. But no, after a moment of concentration he could twitch his fingers, his toes.

What was the effect of an explosion on the human body? He could remember reading it, a long time ago. External pressure becomes larger than internal pressure. The chest moves in, the lungs get crushed. Survivability was measured by scaled impulse equal to impulse divided by the square root of scaled overpressure times…something. Mass. Mass cubed, or the cube root of mass? He couldn’t remember. But the reflection phase…no, it didn’t matter. He was breathing, his lungs were fine.

He blinked torpidly, taking in a deeper inhale despite the smoke and starting to become more aware. The worst of it was escaping through the hole in the roof, so there was still a bit of fresh air. What else had the study said—secondary effects. Fragments, cutting and non-cutting. Kinetic energy, what impacts and what pierces. He raised a hand and clumsily started patting himself down, putting out a few embers on his clothes while he was at it. Scattered contusions on the legs, hip, torso. The face, but that had already been bruised, and so had the neck. Hard to tell what was new. No broken bones, a handful of scrapes and cuts and—

His hand bumped something that broke right through the numbness and he curled in on himself weakly, teeth clenching around a groan. When it eased back to less overwhelming levels, he carefully rolled onto his back and looked down. There, sticking out of his right shoulder under the collarbone, was a chunk of shrapnel.

Now that he was aware of it, it hurt like hell. Jagged metal, three fingers wide, maybe an inch thick. Not bleeding much, not yet. The fragment must be keeping everything sealed off. The second it came out he’d start bleeding like a stuck pig though, so he didn’t try to touch it any further. Just one significant injury. That was better than he could have hoped, after facing an explosion head-on with no Luther to act as a shield.

He jolted, trying to push himself up on shaky arms, before the pain forced him back down again. Fuck, he’d forgotten. “Luther!” he shouted over the crackling fire. “Allison!”

No reply. He couldn’t see past the burning section of wall. The brunt of the explosion seemed to have been directed upward, but how far down the corridor had it collapsed? Were his siblings buried under the debris, or ripped apart by shrapnel? Fear clawed at his chest, made him dizzy. They weren’t answering, didn’t that mean they were dead?

They couldn’t be. They couldn’t be. He couldn’t fucking take it. “Allison, Luther!”

“Hey, boss.”

Five froze, then reached uselessly around himself. The rifle was missing, blown out of his grip in the blast. The glock was empty and abandoned next to Heimann’s corpse. He slowly tried to lever himself up again. The bad leg didn’t want to take any weight, the left arm was still weak from the bullet wound, and now his right side was practically crippled.

He strained to hear over the fire. There was nothing.

Part of him wanted to just stay down and let Paddy shoot him. Allison and Luther were dead, what was the point? He hurt all over. The room wobbled and the smoke stung his eyes, and worst of all was the deadweight of grief like a millstone in his chest.

But he’d always be damned if he docilely let his siblings’ murderer finish the job. Better to be stubborn to the bitter end, even if he couldn’t put up much of a fight. Finally he was standing, hand cupped protectively around the shrapnel, sweating with the effort. His hair hung limply into his eyes but he couldn’t find the energy to brush it away. He hobbled awkwardly in a half-circle until he was facing the other direction.

McGillivray was waiting with great patience, idly pointing a handgun in Five’s direction and watching him with ill-disguised pleasure. There was the missing rifle, pinned under one foot.  “Sorry about your family,” he offered, sounding almost sincere.

Five couldn’t bring himself to reply. He could only hope it had been fast, that they died before they started burning. Hope that they’d moved on to whatever Klaus had said was in the afterlife, instead of haunting him for his failure to get them out. He wouldn’t even get the chance to bury them this time.

“Don’t look so sad,” McGillivray sighed, putting his hand dramatically to his cheek. “You’ll break my poor heart.”

“How’d you find us?” Five asked listlessly, not really caring about the answer.

“I know you, remember? Spent three long months watching you do your thing.” He wagged the gun at Five. “Thought to myself, where do we least expect the old bastard to be? Where do we least _want_ him to be? And there you were, behind the sweep line.”

Was he that predictable? No, even with that, it was more luck than strategy that brought McGillivray to cross their path. Too many variables, even if he had the right general idea.  

The palm of his hand was slowly wetting with blood; standing must have jostled the shrapnel a bit. He wasn’t worried. He knew it wouldn’t matter soon.

Unfazed by his lack of response, Paddy deftly kicked the rifle up with his foot and caught it with his spare hand, not letting his gaze stray from Five. “Looking ragged, boss. You could still come quietly, you know.”

Go back nice and easy to the testing room, in other words. No doubt they’d find some other researcher to fill in the gaps until Heimann resurfaced. Live for a bit longer, knowing two of his family were dead because of him, and the rest to follow? And in the end, either torn apart by his own powers or given like a gift to McGillivray when his usefulness as a lab rat ran out—he really, genuinely would rather die here.

“No,” he said, with grim finality, and pulled the switchblade from his pocket. It opened with a quiet snick, barely able to be heard over the crackle of flame.

McGillivray just laughed, and Five couldn’t even blame him. They both knew he wasn’t in any condition to fight. “Really. _Really_. Bringing a knife to a gunfight? You’re having me on.”

“I know you, too.” Five reminded him, forcing his bad leg to take a bit more weight as he tried for a steadier stance. It shook under him. “I know you’re a coward. You wait until you’ve got every possible upper hand before putting yourself in any danger. Then you drag it out, play with your fucking food. You can’t help yourself. That’s how I know you’re not going shoot me, Paddy.”

“Don’t call me that,” he said automatically, cheeks reddening just a little at being insulted, but he seemed to brush it off. Five supposed it was pretty easy to ignore the small things when you so clearly had the advantage. “You’re not wrong,” he admitted, tucking the pistol away. “Be a bit too quick, wouldn’t it?”

He weighed the rifle contemplatively, and Five had a half-second of warning before he rushed to close the gap, gripping the barrel in both hands and swinging the butt through the air like a baseball bat. Five was ready for him, ducking smoothly as it whistled through the air over his head. Immediately he lunged forward as best as he could—adult body plus weapon meant McGillivray had the reach advantage, he needed to get closer.

He’d always relied on speed in his fights and this wasn’t going to be any different. McGillivray’s arms had swung to the side with the force of the missed blow, leaving him wide open. Not fast enough though; Five was still too far away to hit anything vital before the backswing would split his head open. Well, it didn’t have to be vital, that wasn’t the goal here. It just had to hurt. Quick as a snake Five sunk the switchblade cleanly into his bicep.

McGillivray shouted and backpedaled out of reach, and Five watched with satisfaction as the sleeve of his white button-down bloomed red. “Bastard,” he hissed, inspecting the damage.

It was only a shame that Five didn’t have the capacity right now to go on the offensive, would likely just fall on his face if he tried to attack. Instead he just repositioned his grip on the handle and waited, the fires growing hot at his back. Were Allison and Luther watching him, observing this pathetic last stand? One more failure to add to the long list.

“I guess I shouldn’t have expected anything different,” McGillivray said, huffing out a rueful sigh when it became clear the wound wasn’t serious. “Always so fast, even when you can’t jump around like a jackrabbit. You know, I meant to ask—did you mean for me to get shot?”

What was he—oh, back in London. It didn’t even kill him; Five didn’t know why he was carrying such a grudge. Five had jumped right as the target shot, and McGillivray had just so happened to have been standing behind him unawares. Had he intentionally maneuvered it that way? No. Had he known McGillivray was there? Yes, and hadn’t cared at all.

It was a moot point anyway. He’d intended to kill McGillivray after the job was done, if only to get rid of the crawling sensation he felt every time he thought about the little dead girls. It just came about a little sooner than intended, that was all. “I wasn’t sad about it,” he allowed.

“Not sad enough to drag me out of that ditch, bring your poor trainee back to headquarters to get patched up?”

“Well,” Five said after some deliberation. “I would have gotten my suit dirty.”

McGillivray snarled and charged again, swinging the rifle wildly. Five ducked again but grunted with surprise when his leg finally gave out, dropping him to one knee. He couldn’t retaliate, couldn’t move fast enough to avoid the second swing even though he saw it coming from a mile away. His arms flew up to absorb the blow and the rifle butt slammed into him with tremendous force, smashing past his block and hitting his head hard enough to rattle his teeth.

The impact threw him to the floor, head ringing. The switchblade flew out of his hand and skittered across the floor, lost into the fires. Before he could do more than get his hands under him, McGillivray was already on him, lifting him up by the front of his shirt to slam him against a wall. His feet dangled a few inches above the ground and he blinked furiously, trying to clear his vision.

Instinct said to grip at the wrist holding him up, get leverage, break the hold. Training, from both Dad and the Commission, said to make holding him more painful than letting him go. He lashed out with his good leg, getting in a few good kicks before McGillivray moved in close enough to keep him from getting any power behind it.

It had been a long time since he’d had to fight like this without his powers. Sometimes Dad used to make him jump until his powers crapped out, then have him spar with Luther or Diego. Even then they’d both been bigger and stronger than him, though he’d been agile enough to make up the difference against Diego. Most of the time Luther just had to wait him out—too tough for Five to really make a dent in him without a weapon, so all Luther had to do was pin him when he wore himself down.

McGillivray didn’t have super-strength, of course, but Five was in bad enough shape that it felt depressingly familiar.

Still, he’d always made Luther have to fight to pin him. Left arm was incapacitated from the bullet wound. Right side weak from the shrapnel but the arm itself was fine, so he forced himself to push past the sharp pain as the metal shard shifted inside his chest, throwing a punch that McGillivray barely jerked his head back from in time.

Fucking child’s body. Even with keeping his legs in check McGillivray’s reach was long enough to keep him at arm’s length, far enough away that Five couldn’t get at his eyes or throat.

“Hold still,” McGillivray snarled, suddenly releasing Five’s shirt. Five touched ground and his leg immediately tried to buckle, but before he could fall McGillivray seized him by the throat, the other hand scrambling to pin Five’s right arm to the wall by his head.

McGillivray’s fingers dug into his neck, already bruised from the temper tantrum in the cells, and abruptly Five found his air supply cut off. He could feel his pulse throbbing against the press of his thumb, high and panicked.

Straining against the pin did him no good, he didn’t have the leverage or the muscle strength to get his arm free. Already his lungs were burning. He grit his teeth and scrabbled desperately at McGillivray’s wrist with his left hand, raking furrows with his nails. McGillivray flinched as he drew blood but didn’t loosen his grip.

There was a flash of blue between them as his powers subconsciously activated, but the light guttered and faded as quickly as it came. Pathetic, he had to be able to do more damage than this. Think, think—Five reached up further, dug his fingers into the wound the switchblade had left.

That got McGillivray’s attention. He shouted and drew back far enough that Five managed a quick gasp of air before the hand tightened again, pulling him away from the wall then slamming him back into it. His head rebounded with a loud crack, again, a third time and Five faltered, vision swimming sickly as his hand fell limply to his side.

“That’s better,” McGillivray said, though Five could barely manage to parse the words. McGillivray was sweating a little, face ruddy from exertion and the encroaching fire. “God almighty, this would have gone arseways if the doctor hadn’t been working you over.”

The cartilage in his neck strained and creaked under the pressure. Little bits of gray static were gradually invading his view and his chest twitched with futile attempts to breathe. It hurt more than he’d expected, and it was the pain more than any real strategy that had him tugging at McGillivray’s wrist again.

He was still talking, but the roaring in Five’s ears drowned him out. He would have liked to see home again. Would have liked for Luther and Allison to make it out at least, even if he couldn’t. It was a bitter solace that the Commission wouldn’t be use his powers to cause the apocalypse. He’d always been willing to die for that, but they weren’t supposed to. That was the whole point, fifty years of effort, all the equations and travels and long lists of marks, they were still…still…

Right as his thoughts garbled and the grey static spread over everything McGillivray unclenched his fist just a little, just enough to allow two strained inhales before clamping down again. _Shit, he really is going to play with his food_ , Five thought a little hysterically.

“Never understood it,” McGillivray was saying, continuing his one-sided conversation. Now that Five was thoroughly subdued he had leaned in closer, as though savoring the moment. “You’re just as much of a murderer as I am. Where do you get off playing moral? I’ve seen you kill kids.”

_I never enjoyed it_ , Five wanted to protest. He’d only ever done it for the job, made it clean, took them out before they even knew what was happening. Not like McGillivray, tormenting at random, taking pleasure from it. It was a paper-thin defense; they were still dead, after all. The majority of his marks had been adults and he suspected the Handler had been careful to never assign him too many children. The mark after a kid was always an adult male of questionable morals, someone that in his childhood he would have called a villain. Easy, morally uncomplicated targets to wash down the taste.

It’s not like any of them were saved; while the Handler may have chosen to treat him with velvet gloves, the job still needed to be done. He knew it meant the child assassinations were going to other teams, teams that weren’t as good, wouldn’t be as careful, and that had weighed on him almost as much. Delores had talked him out of asking for more of those assignments. She’d said he needed to concentrate, keep his mind on his goals. How pointless it all seemed now.

“Never thought I’d get a chance like this, you in that body. It’s fate, don’t you think?”

Another half-breath, too small to make any difference, just a thin trickle of what his body needed to keep going.

It was sinking in that Paddy fucking McGillivray was going to be the one to kill him, after all he’d been through. Should have killed him. Five had been petty, unprofessional. Wanted him to suffer the way that little village girl must have. Should have just given the mercy kill and washed his hands of it. Now Luther and Allison had to pay for his selfishness.

And in ten years, when it was safe to time travel, the Commission would probably go after the rest of them, keep trying to get Vanya to blow up the world. He hadn’t accomplished anything.

His vision was graying out again, teetering on the edge of unconsciousness. He tried to spur his failing body into movement, only managing a twitch. Everything hurt. “Shh, shh,” McGillivray murmured calmingly, as though soothing a small child, watching him with a horrible fanatic gleam in his eyes. “There we go, Five. There we go. Just relax, everything will be fine.”  

He wasn’t letting up this time, the deprivation an iron bar around Five’s lungs. It was too much to bear, that Paddy would come out of this almost unscathed, completely satisfied. If only he had a weapon, something to make him regret killing Five’s family.

His shirt was wet with blood, clinging to him. That seemed important for some reason. Bleeding because Paddy had blown a bomb up in his face and murdered his siblings. Bleeding because—

Before he could think about it, he tore the shrapnel from his chest. It scraped along his collar bone sickeningly but he lashed out, slashing at McGillivray’s face with the sharp metal shard.

McGillivray screamed, dropping his pin on Five’s other arm to knock the slick shrapnel out of his weak grasp before cupping his face, blood seeping out around the palm. Even then he didn’t let up on the pressure around Five’s throat, and Five used the last bit of adrenaline to use both hands to try to break the hold.

It was no good, he realized dimly. Too little too late, just like always, though there was some triumph in seeing the horror show of Paddy’s mangled eye when he was forced to pin Five’s right arm again. Would have been nice to have something more pleasant as his last image in life, but he’d take it.

His vision was blacking out completely now and he closed his eyes, the blaring alarms along his nervous system shutting down one by one. Would he become a ghost? He hoped not. Didn’t want that, have some part of him clinging pathetically to his own killer. Better to move on, go find Dad and scream at him for not telling them everything.

Go find Allison and Luther. Apologize.

“A good person would have started with the apologizing instead of the screaming.” A young voice commented lightly.

Five opened his eyes.

The hallway was still bright with fire but it was like in the Handler’s time bubbles, where everything was frozen. Or not quite, he realized, everything moving slow as molasses. The fire shifting incrementally, blood tracing a line on McGillivray’s jaw, the shift of the muscles in his arms as he pressed Five into the wall.

He felt great, Five realized, legs taking his weight easily as he stepped away, left McGillivray behind. There was a girl there, sitting on a blazing beam without concern, kicking at the hem of her white dress with shiny black shoes. It should have been incongruous but Five couldn’t bring himself to care, too relieved by the lack of pain.

Besides, he knew who she was. Klaus’ ramblings had been clear enough.

“You’re going to die if you don’t do something,” she said, nodding past him. He looked back and watched as McGillivray continued to throttle him. Five’s hand was only limply resting on McGillivray’s arm, not even struggling anymore.

He looked away. He didn’t need to see himself die. “Foregone conclusion, isn’t it?”

She scowled at him, like it was his fault. “If you die I won’t send you back like the other one, if that’s what you’re hoping for.”

He just shrugged, taking in a deep breath and stretching lightly. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt this good, even the smallest ache completely gone. “Don’t worry, I know better than to expect anything from you.”

“Ungrateful,” she complained, still swinging her legs. “I’m nice enough to give you a minute to think and you get mouthy?”

“You could have helped at any time.”

“Not my job,” she said promptly. “But for the record, I _did_ help. Not my fault if you’re too stupid to see it. If my garden gets burned up because of you, I’ll be cross.”

“Well, that makes two of us.”

“So do something about it! That’s what you’re for!”

“What do you want me to do?! Look, just guide me to my siblings or whatever and leave me alone.”

“No need,” she huffed, hopping off the beam and stomping toward him.  “They’re on the way.”

She shoved him and he flew backward, hit the wall, hit _himself_ , and the pain rocketed back into him as time sped up, the clench of McGillivray’s fingers digging into his skin, the crackle of fire, the steady leak of blood from his chest. What was the point of all that? He had nothing left to give, hurting even worse now that he’d had a respite from it. His eyes were half-open but he could only vaguely make out McGillivray’s disfigured face, who was turning his head, distracted. Distracted?

There was a shout, and Luther slammed into him like a freight train.

McGillivray’s hands ripped away and Five dropped like a stone even as their momentum carried them out of sight. Air flooded excruciatingly back into his lungs as he wheezed against the ash-dusted floor. Something was happening, a familiar rhythmic sound like a punching bag being hit, again and again. He couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but lay there and force himself to keep breathing past his abused throat.

Someone was touching him suddenly and training screamed that he defend himself as two fingers skimmed along the bruises before resting on his pulse point, but all he managed was a heavy flinch. “It’s just me,” the person said. “Are you with me? Five?”

He wasn’t, not really. Reality kept blurring in and out of focus. Even with fresh oxygen inundating his system he felt like he was going to pass out again, hazy and sick with it. The person rolled him from his side onto his back, a warm hand cushioning his head. “Jesus, that’s—do you have _another_ hole in you? Luther! Luther, get over here, I need help.”

The punching bag noise stopped. Five blinked, trying to force his eyes to start working properly. “Allison?” He croaked out, voice giving out on the last syllable.

“Hey,” she said, smiling down at him with relief. _But you’re dead_ , he thought dizzily. “Sorry we’re late, we had to find a route that wasn’t on fire to get back here.”

“That looks bad.” And there was Luther, staring at Five’s chest uneasily. Luther, who was also dead. It was too much, Five couldn’t process it, reality going wobbly and faded again.

“No Five, don’t— _I heard a rumor you didn’t pass out._ ”

Forced awareness shot through him like a bolt of lightning, electrifying every nerve ending. It hurt. It hurt it hurt it hurt, ragged breath tearing at his throat, the torn flesh on his torso, the arm and leg, it was like he could even feel in stark relief all the micro-wounds he’d inflicted on himself. He thrashed weakly, mindlessly trying to escape the intensity.

“What the hell?!”

“I had to, what if he didn’t wake up? Hurry up!”

Five was shivering now, teeth chattering with it and hand shaking when he reached out to grab Allison’s arm. She was warm to the touch. She was real. She didn’t even look hurt.

“I’m fine,” she said reassuringly. “You’re not, so stop moving around.”

Luther was back, holding a bundle of cloth that looked like a button-down shirt, and promptly pressed it against the shrapnel wound. Five groaned through it. “Luther,” he managed, voice a mess, “Luther, stop.”

“You’re bleeding out Five, shut up and hold still.”

It wasn’t going to be enough, he could tell, the cloth quickly becoming sodden. Allison was coming to the same conclusion by the look on her face, the nervous shifting of her hand on his. They were depending on him to get them out, he knew, but he just didn’t see that happening now. He caught her eye and forced his aching throat into working. “Backtrack,” he rasped as firmly as he could. “The case on the bed.”

It had looked the least dismantled of the two in Heimann’s room, as far as he could tell. There was a small chance it was still functional. Very small. But their only other option involved hiding until the TempCorps inevitably hunted them down. It was the best he could do.

“Testing room is closer. We passed it when we circled back to find you,” she denied, though they both knew that wasn’t what he meant.

Five started to say as much then shut his mouth with a grimace when Luther pressed down harder. “This isn’t working,” Luther said. He was using his Number One voice, which meant he was starting to panic but trying to hide it, Five noted hazily.

“I’ve got an idea,” Allison said reluctantly.

“Yeah?”

“You’re not going to like it.”

“It’s not like things could get worse!”

She stood, slipping her hand out from under Five’s head. “You’ll need to hold him down,” was all she said as she walked out of his line of sight, sounding like she hated herself.

Normally Five could follow his siblings’ trains of thought with some accuracy, unpredictable as they were. Now though, even with the rumor forcing him into semi-alertness, he couldn’t bully his brain into enough rational thinking to predict anything. So he waited in muted bewilderment, shivering intermittently. Even if he couldn’t see Allison, Luther could—and his face twisted slowly into revulsion. She was right, whatever it was he didn’t like it.

Neither did he, Five amended when she came back into view holding a piece of wood, smoldering cherry-red at the end.

“Are you sure?” Luther asked, strained.

She didn’t look anything approaching sure, hesitating a few feet away, but she nodded anyway. “Five?”

What, they were asking his permission? Nice of them. What the hell, if it got him stable long enough to get to the testing center it was worth it. Probably. Maybe he could still get them out. What was the percentage? He couldn’t begin to work out the math, the numbers slipping from his mind like water.

“Get me something to bite down on,” he said quietly, and if his voice shook they were kind enough not to comment on it.

In short order he had a folded-up length of leather belt shoved between his teeth, Luther holding both of his wrists in one hand and reaching to inexorably hold down his legs at the same time. Five’s pulse was jackrabbiting unsteadily.

Allison didn’t draw out the tension, taking only a quick moment to psyche herself up for it, before kneeling next to him and pressing the glowing tip to his flesh.

His muffled scream echoed through the corridor.

Five lost a bit of time after that. He couldn’t pass out, not with the rumor holding him in its iron grip, but there was more than one way for a brain to shut down when pushed beyond its limits. There were only brief moments of understanding before falling back into a hazy stupor. He was vaguely aware of the agony receding gradually, of numbness, of intense dizziness when he was picked up off the floor.

A flash of an image as they moved forward—something on the floor. A messy red smear of something that used to be human, stripped down to the undershirt.

Another flash. Metal doors passing by quickly, a rhythmic sort of jostling. Warmth against his side, under his back. Luther.

Flash. Allison’s eyes, shadowed and guilty.

He was in shock, some part of him knew, shaking like a leaf. He couldn’t remember what to do about it. Had Dad said anything, outside of ‘don’t do that’? Or maybe he would have been more, ‘we have too much work to do to lollygag about.’ That sounded right.

Flash. Dad hadn’t gone over cauterization, either. Had she picked that up from one of her movies?

Flash. The flicker of too-bright lights. An area where the lights were out, but fire was beginning to spread hungry over the walls.

He as familiar with fire. There had been a lot of it, his first few weeks in the apocalypse. Made everything stink like ash for years. He could remember craving greenery, the good smell of growing things. After his recruitment, he’d gone through a phase of ignoring his lodging stipends in favor of sleeping outside. Partly because it was hard to adjust to four undamaged walls after so long, but also because it was easier to remind himself where he was after a nightmare if his head was pillowed by grass.

Her garden, she called it. Funny, none of them had ever been outdoorsy. When would they have had the chance? Dear old Dad wasn’t exactly the type to organize camping trips. Grace might have, if she were allowed outside. Luther had experimented for awhile with a garden in one of the courtyards, but that was the extent of the Academy’s green thumb.

Gradually Five’s brain struggled back online, like slogging through thick mud, head pounding and shoulder throbbing with every heartbeat. He felt disconnected from his body, aware it was still hurting, but almost like it was happening to someone else. Luther was still a warm wall against him, though he couldn’t manage to stop shivering regardless.

Five forced himself to stop staring vacantly at the scenery—he was pretty sure there was something he needed to be doing, even if he couldn’t remember what it was. There was always something that needed doing, always more work. Luther’s face was stiff with anxiety as he hurried along. Allison was practically jogging at his side to keep up with his longer stride.

“Huh,” he said, hearing his own slurred voice as though from a distance. “You m-must be smug.”

He could feel it when Luther jumped a bit, staring down at him with relief. His mouth opened, then closed as though he’d reconsidered how to respond. Finally he said, “Why’s that?”

Five cleared his throat. Regretted it when it burned. “After all that nagging, you finally got to carry me.”

“Sure,” Luther deadpanned. “I’m thrilled.”

“What’s happening?”

“We’re almost there,” Allison chimed in. Then hesitatingly, as though she wasn’t sure if he remembered—“To the testing room.”

Neither of them bothered to ask him how he was feeling. Five supposed it must be pretty obvious. He wasn’t stupid enough to demand to be put down. His teeth were still chattering sporadically. As he gradually snatched up the shreds of lucidity, the various wounds were making themselves known at full force. His shoulder burned intensely, making his vision white out until he was able to adjust to the sensation. Each step they took sent a jolt through his body, though he could tell Luther was taking pains to move smoothly.

Suddenly Allison held up a hand to stop them and swiveled her head to the side, listening intently. “Luther,” she whispered tightly, just as Five heard the tell-tale clamor of a patrol in the intersecting hallway ahead.

He thought he recognized where they were. The testing room was so close.

“Make a run for it,” Luther ordered tersely, and they were off—Luther and Allison sprinting full pelt and Five biting back a sound when the rough movement jarred his injuries. He saw the red-masked soldiers whip their heads around as they passed; maybe a half dozen or more, he wasn’t sure.

Luther skidded around the next corner just as the gunfire started, thudding into the walls. They threw open the metal door and scrambled inside, slamming it shut with a metal clang. Luther shifted Five’s weight to one arm long enough to use his free hand to twist and break the handle, locking them in.

There was a muffled commotion on the other side as the patrol tried to open the door, but it held firm. The room was otherwise quiet and bare, looking just as it had when they’d first arrived. Not even the liquefaction of the soldier had left a stain. Allison heaved a sigh, sounding so relieved that Five hated to put a damper on it.

Still—“Find the beta blockers,” he urged hoarsely when no one moved. “Before they bring more explosives.”

That got them going, Allison hurrying over to the terminal and pulling out Heimann’s leather satchel from underneath. She dug through it and with a sound of triumph pulled out a capped needle, filled with clear fluid. “It’s here,” she exclaimed.

Luther carried Five over to the metal table and lowered him carefully until he was seated. Even as slow as Luther moved, dizziness washed over him and he clamped his eyes shut and swayed when the room cartwheeled, would have fallen off the table if Luther hadn’t still been holding on to his shoulders. Fuck. The shock was sort of worn off and if he hadn’t died of blood loss by now he probably wouldn’t, but he was in bad shape. If it weren’t for the rumor he would probably pass out within seconds.

“Trade me,” Luther said to Allison, who placed the needle on the table and swapped in to help keep Five upright. They watched as he ripped the computer from its stand and smashed it to the floor, components and circuitry scattering. He was careful to step on everything that looked important, using his strength to grind it near to dust beneath his shoe.

It said a great deal about Five’s condition that he hadn’t even considered the computer. There was enough data on there that Heimann would have been able to pick the project right up again whenever he got revived.

Luther turned to step on another piece and Five noticed with tired alarm a plethora of rips and red stains on his back. “He’s hurt?” he asked Allison, the words grating in his throat.

“Just a bit,” she murmured back reassuringly. “From the bomb. He had a bit of shrapnel in him too, but nothing too serious.”

“You?”

“No, he took the brunt of it.”

Thank fucking god Luther was supernaturally tough, he thought lightheadedly. The damage didn’t even seem to be slowing him down, a fact that would make Five jealous if he’d had the energy to get worked up about it.

“All right,” Luther declared, nudging a toe through the debris. “That should do it. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

That sounded nice. He’d been mentally hashing out the equation over the last couple days when he could spare the concentration. There were a lot of unknown variables—they didn’t know where or when they currently were, after all—but any place was better than this. Just a quick prick of the needle and he’d get them out, go home. He still had a chance not to fail.

Luther came back to take over holding up Five while Allison picked up the needle. “Which arm?” She asked, half-joking.

“Right,” he said. Left had the bullet wound, and the—he slumped, leaning more heavily into Luther’s grip. “Shit.”

“What is it?”

“I forgot.” He bit out, throat aching viciously. “Do you have a knife? Anything sharp?”

They shook their heads. His own had been lost in the fight with Paddy, fallen into the fire. “Five,” Allison said, brow furrowed. “Why do you need a knife?”

“The fucking tracker,” he clarified roughly, angry at himself for forgetting. Paddy no doubt had a knife on him, could have looted that if he hadn’t been so out of it. “The leash.” It would electrocute him if he tried to jump them out of here. If they didn’t get it out, they weren’t going anywhere.

By the looks in their eyes, they’d forgotten too, so focused on getting to the testing room that everything else had fallen by the wayside. Allison rifled quickly through Heimann’s satchel, but turned up nothing useable.

“The computer,” Five coughed when the words snagged on their way out.

“No way,” Allison said immediately, “Even if there’s a sharp edge, we can’t do this with anything less than a scalpel.”

“That’s—”

“You can’t even sit up on your own,” she overrode him, eyes flashing stubbornly. “If we play surgeon with a dull piece of plastic you’re going to lose more blood than you can stand to lose.”

“She’s right,” Luther chimed in firmly. “You wouldn’t make it.”

“We don’t have a choice.” 

“There has to be another option.”

“Sure, if Luther wants to _tear my arm off_!” He snarled, gripping the edge of the table and trying to will the dizziness away. They didn’t have time for this nonsense. Even if he bled out from removing the tracker, he’d probably still have enough time to jump them out beforehand. Didn’t they get that? Didn’t they understand this was the only way? The soldiers wouldn’t take long to get through that door, and that would be the end of all three of them. Two out of three was better than zero, it was the simplest math in the world.

“Allison, think of Claire.” he said urgently, not above a little a manipulation.

“Oh, fuck you.” She snapped furiously, looking like she’d like to hit him. “You think—”

“There _is_ another option.” Luther interjected quickly, startling them both. He gestured toward the blank wall on the far end. It had a crack in it, from where Luther had slammed his fist against it while Five was figuring out the margin of error. It felt like it had happened a long time ago. “It’s like a dog shock collar, right?”

Five struggled to kick his brain out of the fog that still clung to him, but couldn’t understand where Luther was going with this. Seeing his confusion, Luther clarified, “The tracker, it activates when you try to jump past these walls. The Handler said that, right? That this is the perimeter. What happens if you put a shock collar on a dog, but it’s already outside the fence?”

“Nothing,” Allison said slowly, then brightened. “Nothing!”

“But we’re inside the fence,” Five reminded them, still not seeing the point. His shoulder burned distractingly. He avoided looking at it, not willing to see the damage. It smelled a bit like cooked meat. It was a sickeningly familiar smell, from all the charred corpses in the apocalypse. It made it a struggle to remember where he was.

“So let’s go outside,” Luther shrugged, letting Allison take over supporting Five again and cracking his knuckles meaningfully. He strode over to the far wall and planted his feet firmly, throwing his arm out in a powerful haymaker. Five flinched in surprise as debris and dust flew wide. When it cleared, a cool breeze brushed through his hair.

There was a large hole in the wall, leading out into darkness. Night, was it night time? It had been impossible to tell. It was a relief after all the white halls and harsh light.

Luther was dusting off his hands. “There,” he said, self-satisfied about it.

It was still going to shock him, Five knew, but as long as they could get past the border, the proverbial fence line…”Allison, the beta blockers.”

She snatched up the needle and he held out his right arm. The prick of the needle was so small he barely noticed it past his body’s louder complaints. Allison pushed down the plunger and the clear fluid went in smoothly. As always, he felt no different. She withdrew a needle and held her thumb over the injection, still supporting his shoulder with one hand.

It was frustrating that he had to wait for Luther to come pick him up, though he knew his leg wouldn’t support him. It would be even more mortifying to fall on his face, so he let himself be gathered up without complaint, Luther’s body heat soothing some of the chills wracking his body. The room spun again at the shift and he grit his teeth against the nausea.

Allison slipped out through the hole in front of them, cautiously peering into the darkness. Five steeled himself as Luther got into position, clearly intending to get a running start. It was okay. He could do this, didn’t even really have to do anything except bear it. His swallowed with apprehension and had to make an effort to keep his breathing even.

“Ready?” Luther asked, repositioning him in his arms, and he nodded resolutely.

With a powerful lunge Luther shot forward, long legs eating up the distance to the hole in just a few strides. Then they were through, into the night wind, they rushed past the wall and onto grass—

Five hit the border and electricity crackled through him, snapping his body taut, each muscle seizing rapidly, each nerve ending lighting up like a firework. His heart stuttered wildly and it wasn’t ending, it wasn’t ending, wave after agonizing wave, longer than before—

Abruptly he collapsed, the charge draining out of him as quickly as it had come on. They’d gotten through, he realized dimly, heart still stumbling unevenly in his chest. His body was limp and his vision hazy again, the white light from the stars above them moving softly in and out of focus, as though in a dream.

Luther knelt to put him down, back sinking into the grass. It was wet with dew and the cool moisture sunk into his clothes, goosebumps running up his arms. He inhaled the smell of geosmin greedily. It felt quiet out here, calm. The full moon was shining yellow on everything, enough to see by. The leading line of a forest bracketed the building a short distance away, tall dark evergreens and deep undergrowth. Above them, out in the distance, Five thought he could make out the long hunch of a mountain range lurking on the horizon.

The building, squat and starkly white, was larger than he’d expected, even with as much ground as they’d been forced to cover. It was massive. It was also, Five noticed detachedly, very much on fire.

Bits of the blazing roof collapsed as he watched, sparks floating up almost peacefully into the dark sky. It was probably a good thing—if this is where Heimann lived, undoubtably the most important scientist in the whole project, who knew what other dangerous things had been kept here? On the other hand, he had a theory that this complex was the metaphysics department the Handler had mentioned in her office, which meant no more decade-evocative candy. You win some, you lose some.

Had some flunky in there been making sweets while Five had been playing guinea pig? He didn’t know how to feel about that.

“Five? Five, can you hear me?” Someone was patting the side of his face gently.

How long had he been dazing out? Focus, he still had a job to finish. Evergreens, mountains. A chill in the air. “Luther,” he croaked out. “Is that the Andromeda constellation?”

“Uh, yes?” Luther and Allison were kneeling on either side of his prone body. Allison was chafing his hands as though she was worried about blood flow, when had she started doing that? He needed to pull himself together. “Yeah, that’s Andromeda. Why?”

Northern hemisphere in the fall. Along the Cascades, probably. Maybe. No way to tell the date, which was unfortunately the important part. He’d be jumping blind, shoving bad data into the equation. Forget margin of error, he’d be lucky if it balanced at all. Couldn’t even begin to calculate a confidence interval for a century, much less a year.

They all jolted when an explosion broke through the quiet air. Smoke and dust poured out from the hole to the testing room. A moment later, soldiers began swarming out like red ants, spreading out in formation and raising their guns.

They fired, bullets hitting the ground with small showers of dirt, but Five was already pulling, hands clasped with his siblings’ as the blue portal descended around them. Pulled and there was the quantum tear, the torture of cellular rip—and they were gone.

He could perceive the bright threads of reality, all the strings and weaves of energy that made up the universe. It was nothingness and everything all at once, and he no longer had a physical body but he could still somehow see it, visualize it. Here the layers that translated into location. Here the sub-strata of time, infinitely deep, all the years and eons and he needed, somehow, to choose the right one. It would be so easy to get lost, to hesitate, his consciousness dissolving into the vastness of it like sugar into water.

But there was the weight of Luther and Allison’s minds being tugged along beside him, keeping him grounded. He’d done this jump before. Knew from long experience how it felt, the incredible nostalgia of a particular layer, and he was drawn toward it like a homing pigeon.

Space spat them back out mid-air and they fell. Allison managed to get herself partially under Five to cushion him but he still groaned at the impact.

He felt sick, so dizzy he had to clench his eyes shut and breathe carefully through his nose to combat the nausea. Was this how Luther felt when he jumped? His inner ear was doing cartwheels. Then Allison was hastily shifting him off and movement made the nausea skyrocket, a clammy sweat breaking out on his forehead. “I’m going to be sick,” he mumbled in warning.

Five ended up on his knees, vaguely aware of Luther shouting something but too busy trying to puke up his guts to pay attention. The bile burned like fire going past his throat, though his stomach was empty outside of the water and granola he’d eaten earlier. Even after there was nothing left to come up, he dry-heaved for a long, miserable minute.

He gripped the edge of the bucket shakily when he was finally done, spitting to clear the taste from his mouth. Allison was rubbing soothing circles into his back while holding him up. Kneeling made his leg an agony under him so with her help he moved into a seated position with his legs bent in front, wiping brusquely at the reflexive tears from throwing up.

There was a bit of blood in the bucket, he could see. He shoved it away before Allison could notice. Damage from the jump, probably. He’d crossed a lot more time and space than during the tests, made sense that the damage would accumulate quicker. God, he was tired.

Wait, bucket?

He jerked his head up. Luther was standing protectively between them and a small, white-haired woman. Her skin was papery with age and she had a small, secretive smile.

“I asked who you were!” Luther demanded loudly. “Are you with the Commission?”

“Good to see you too, Luther.”

“Vanya,” Five said softly, because he’d know her anywhere. The fondness and relief at seeing her brought a lump to his throat.

“Hey Five,” she said, peering past Luther’s bulk and waving cheekily. “You look terrible. Glad you warned me to bring a bucket.”

“Vanya?” Allison asked at Five’s back, sounding stunned. Luther looked equally dumbfounded, swiveling to look between them and her. Vanya shuffled toward them, placing a quick kiss on his cheek in passing that looked habitual. He put a hand to his face, as though not sure to be pleased about it or not.

“Yay sisters,” she confirmed wryly, coming to stand in front of them. “Though I could be your grandmother right now.” Allison left Five on the floor to hug her hesitantly, arms going carefully around her thin frame.

She was so old, Five thought to himself. Liver spots on her hands, her hair thinner than he remembered. It might be the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. It meant he’d won. He’d won.

When Allison released her, Vanya leaned down to run her hands through Five’s hair affectionately. “I’d hug you too but my knees would never forgive me,” she joked. He had to look away before he embarrassed himself by crying. God, all this effort and here, finally, was proof that he could achieve what he’d set out to do fifty years ago. “You can’t stay for long, I’m afraid.”

“Where are we?” He asked, the roughness in his voice only partly from the damage.

“The Academy,” she said, “You’re just off by a few years.”

“This doesn’t look like home,” Luther said doubtfully. He was right, the space was airy and comfortable, softly lit with a couple large plush couches and armchairs. But Five could see it in his mind’s eye, transposing what he knew. There, the bookshelves. Dad’s wood bar and stiff-backed furniture. Yes, he supposed this could be the main living area.

“We redecorated,” she shrugged. “I think it was Klaus’ idea.”

“Vanya, Five’s not doing well. Can we—”

“No,” she interrupted, regretful about it. “Sorry, but you really do need to go. I need to turn the device back on.”

“I figured it out?” Five asked sharply. “How?”

She laughed, more at ease with herself than Five had ever seen. “Yes, you figured it out. Or you will figure it out, going to have figured it out, however you want the grammar to go. I’m not telling, it’s important for you to work through it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but Five’s not in any condition for another jump,” Luther interrupted, and Allison nodded in agreement.

“He’ll make it, though it won’t be fun. Oh, here,” she said, pulling a slip of paper from her pocket. “A gift from you to you.”

Five took the paper from her and unfolded it with shaky hands, eyebrows going up at the long lines of equations. It was in his messy, cramped writing. He recognized all the basics. There was the wavefunction probability density, and the general normalization condition. That was…the Heisenburg equation, mostly, but with a few changes. There were large chunks that were nothing he’d ever seen before. It filled up every square centimeter of the page until in the bottom right-hand corner, the answer was circled.

This was an equation to get them back home, to the right place and right time, simpler and more elegant than anything he’d managed to produce. It was masterfully done. Flawless. His future self had obviously made some progress over the years.

“Got it?” Vanya asked, holding out her hand. “You can’t keep the paper.”

Reluctantly he handed it back. She shredded it into small pieces and stuffed the scraps back into her pocket.

Luther moved closer, an intense look on his face. “Vanya, what happens? The Commission, the Academy—"

“Oh, don’t ask,” she chided gently, waving him off. “Five says if I tell you things might get screwed up.”

“But are you _happy_?” He asked earnestly, putting a hand on her shoulder.

And wasn’t that something? A year ago, Five would never have expected rule-bound Luther to care about something as intangible as happiness. Hell, Five didn’t much care about it himself in the short-term, so long as everyone stayed alive. He knew Luther’s actions during the apocalypse conflict had caused him a great deal of guilt. It really had changed him.

Vanya smiled and replied simply, “Yes.”

“That’s all right then,” Luther said decisively, coming over to pick Five up again. He had to swallow hard to not start dry-heaving again. “Let’s go home.”

“Think you’re up to it, Five?” Allison asked, eying him doubtfully.

He couldn’t blame her. He was starting to feel worse again, wanting nothing more than to stop moving and hole up until his head stopped spinning and the nerves in his burned flesh stopped screaming. It was all he could do to keep the necessary equations straight in his mind, even though his future self had done all the work for him. Another jump was going to be awful.

But he had to get them home. He had to do that much for them. “I’ll do it.”

“Have a safe trip,” Vanya said cheerfully, stepping back as Allison linked her arm firmly through Luther’s.

He took a last look at her, then pulled on his powers without bothering to say goodbye. Again, the flickering portal descended on them, the terrible pain as his body was obliterated, the darkness, the infinity of weaves. He wondered if this is how the girl saw things. If she knew it all down to the atom, to the subatomic particles, preons, all moving small and fine into one-dimensionality. The singing harmonic oscillators, the universe humming to itself.

And there, guided by the elegant language of mathematics, the desired string. It wasn’t far. They were already on the right layer, just follow the strata down and in, furling and unfurling like a pulse of electricity, like a heartbeat.

This time, instead of a violent ejection, spacetime wrapped cleanly around them and reformed his body in a wash of wave particles, the portal fizzing around them like champagne before dissipating.

It had never been so smooth, he though somewhat giddily, looking up at the blackened hole in the ceiling where, at the beginning of all this, Paddy’s rooftop bomb had gone off. It was covered with a blue tarp.

“What was—Jesus Christ!” Klaus yelped, coming around the corner and stumbling back dramatically. The four siblings stared at each other for a moment, then he turned tail and ran back into the hallway, screaming, “They’re back!”

“Well,” said Luther after a moment, as the sound of stampeding footsteps echoed toward them, “At least we get a greeting party.” Five let out a ragged laugh, wiping at the sweat on his face with a wildly unsteady hand. The movement pulled at his side uncomfortably.

“Damn it, Five,” Ben said, hurrying back into the room behind Klaus and surveying the situation in one unimpressed glance. “Blood belongs on the _inside_ , idiot.”

Diego burst onto the scene before Five could think of something suitably sarcastic to say, wielding two knives and looking around wildly. He deflated a bit when it became obvious there weren’t any enemies, tucking the knives back into his vest. “Anyone want to fill us in?

Where was Vanya? Oh, Europe, with the orchestra. He wondered if anyone had even told her yet that they’d gone missing. 

“Later,” Allison dismissed. “Someone go get Mom, she needs to take a look at Five and Luthor.”

“I’m all right,” Luther said.

“Yeah, pincushion’s a good look on you,” Klaus remarked, circling them to see better.

Five closed his eyes, only half-listening. The last of the adrenaline was finally draining out of his system and his shoulder was a persistent agony. His head ached and he was ridiculously thirsty, which was probably just as much blood loss as anything else.

“Let’s get you on the couch for now,” Luther murmured in an undertone as the others bickered. Five didn’t argue; a soft surface sounded heavenly. He was having a hard time concentrating as the voices of siblings melded and echoed in the high ceilings.

He wondered what they’d all look like, when they reach Vanya’s era the natural way. Seven sets of dentures, his brain supplied woozily. Long white beards. No, Ben and Diego couldn’t grow decent beards to save their lives. Klaus could, probably. Luther had mentioned he’d had a beard on the moon, but he’d also had ape genes at the time.

He was about to ask Luther if he could still grow one when he felt him bend forward, shifting his grip to keep Five stable at the new angle. He wasn’t using hardly any strength at all but under his fingers Five’s ribcage creaked alarmingly and, abruptly, gave away.

Something snapped and he jerked out of Luther’s hold, falling the last few inches onto the couch as his vision whited out. “F-fuck,” he stammered, clasping a hand to his side and there was something stabbing him inside, the broken rib snagging and shifting with every movement of his chest. He tipped his head back and breathed as shallowly as he could manage, spots dancing in front of his eyes.

The blood was rushing in his ears and he couldn’t push through it, had no reserves left to help him cope.

“Did someone _strangle_ him?” Diego’s voice, horrified over the general commotion. Luther was stumbling over a stream of apologies, hovering as though afraid to touch him, though Five knew it wasn’t his fault. The rib must have been weakened by the jump, just like his leg.

He tried a deeper breath and it was like a knife. Suddenly Mom was there, dropping elegantly to her knees and murmuring something he didn’t catch, pulling his hand away from his side. She palpated the area with a light touch but it was still too much, his shout tangled up behind his teeth, mindlessly trying to flinch away as he shuddered in pain, he couldn’t, he couldn’t—

“Allison,” he managed, and if he had more breath he might have begged.

But she must have understood, because he could feel the rumor draining from his mind like ice water, and he was gone in the next instant, subsumed, diving into a deep blackness.

 

 

 

 

 

He dreamed fitfully. There was the Handler, digging her manicured nails deep into his side. She smiled, her lipstick a wide gash on her face.  Her hair didn’t quite cover the hole in her forehead. “You haven’t changed anything,” she told him. “Not really. _Le monde a commencé sans l'homme et il s'achèvera sans lui.”_

“But not yet,” he said, and fell into the hole. It was dark, and then there was light. The girl in the white dress was knitting, skeins of yarn strewn all around. He couldn’t tell what she was making, only that the pattern was vast and intricate in a way that was impossible to understand.

She added a final stich and set aside the needles, gathering up the seemingly infinite pattern and compressing it into her hands, as though turning coal into diamond. After a moment she unclasped her hands and held up a single green leaf, veins branching out in perfect symmetry and glistening with dew.

A tree appeared behind her and she placed the leaf precisely on a branch, affixed through some unknown means. She looked at Five for the first time as she returned to the needles and started knitting again. “Do you get it?”

“No.”

She snorted and snapped her fingers. The tree glowed blue, turned into the layers and strata, the flow of energy, and at the boundaries the lack of flow. “That’s it,” she said, seeing where he was looking. “That’s the key.”

“I don’t get it,” he said in frustration. “Explain it better.”

“Figure it out, moron.” She sneered, and vanished abruptly. In her place was Reginald Hargreeves, monocle in place, mustache as perfectly quaffed as always and the wrinkles around his eyes deep as he scowled at Five.

“If you’re here for another lecture—ow!” Five jumped when something smacked into his forehead. An acorn fell at his feet, and he groaned. “Not this again. Give it a rest.”

“The primary concern of mathematics is number, and this means the positive integers.” Reginald intoned sonorously, and lobbed another acorn at him. “Positive integers were created by God for the benefit of man. Knock it off, you’re going to wake him up. Mathematics belongs to man, not to God. But I’m bored. We are not interested in properties of the positive integers that have no descriptive meaning for finite man. Can’t we get a tv in here or something? If God has mathematics of his own that needs to be done, let him do it himself.”

“I fucking wish,” Five said, as a third nut pelted his head.

The darkness around them was dissolving. Reginald’s frown deepened and he threw a final acorn before turning on his heel and walking away. It all collapsed around him, the light broke through, he opened his eyes—

“Now you’ve done it,” Ben said regretfully.

They were in his room at the academy, he slowly processed. Birds were singing outside the window. Ben was tucking a bookmark into the spine of a familiar-looking book, and Klaus was sprawled indolently over the arms of a plush armchair, shuffling a deck of playing cards deftly.

He flicked a card at Five and it bounced off his chest. “About time you woke up, mein bruder.” There were a few other cards littering Five’s pillow that shifted, one sliding to the floor with a soft sound. “Did you know you frown in your sleep? It’s precious, like a little chihuahua—”

From his own chair, Ben chucked one of his shoes at him. Klaus yelped and dramatically toppled to the floor, mumbling something that sounded suspiciously like ‘et tu, Brute’ into the carpet and flailing a bit.

“How are you feeling?” Ben asked him, ignoring the death scene ensuing at their feet.

“Why are you reading Errett Bishop,” Five demanded instead of answering, though his voice came out in a dry croak. He had a needle in the back of his hand, the connecting tube running off behind his head. The fuzzy disconnect of his body and the way he was finding it hard to concentrate indicated it was something with a bit more kick to it than saline.

“First thing you do after two days of sleep is bitch about my reading material?” Ben toed off his other shoe and stood up, casually stepping on Klaus’ back. There was an offended squawk that they both ignored. “Thought you might enjoy something mathematical. It was better than what Klaus was going to pick.”

“Wrinkle in Time is a national treasure!”

Ben produced a straw and a glass of water from the bedside table, holding the cup out. Five supposed he should be grateful Ben didn’t try to hold it for him—he didn’t think his pride could take it.

Still, even in the medicinal haze his side twinged warningly when he reached out too quickly. After managing a few sips of water, he gave the cup back and pulled aside the tunic-style hospital gown he was wearing over a loose pair of pajama pants. There was a long line of stitches running up his side, and the surrounding skin was mottled with deep bruises.

“You’ll be feeling _that_ later,” Klaus remarked, shimmying across the carpet until he could prop his head up on the bed. “Right now they’ve got you on the good stuff. I’m jealous.”

Five frowned. “It should have fixed itself.” His voice still sounded like—well, like he’d been strangled recently, but it was a bit better after the water.

“Yeah, but you were going to pop a lung before that happened, so.”

“So,” Ben picked up patiently, “Mom held the ribs in place until your, uh, what we calling them?”

“Corrective jumps.”

“Too long,” Klaus rejected immediately. “Baby jump, doo doo, doo doo doo.”

“ _No—”  
_ “Until the baby jumps kicked in and sealed the bone back together. Had to cut into you to do that though. Gotta heal that the long way. Allison told us all the collateral damage doesn’t really fix itself, right? Like your leg.”  
“Diego might kill you later.”

Five blinked at the abrupt subject change, silently bemoaning the fact that he had to deal with both of them so soon after waking up. “Why’s that.”

“You _know_ how he feels about our dear robo-mother.”

“What happened to Grace?” He said through gritted teeth. Klaus never could just spit something out. Whatever meds he was on were probably the only reason he didn’t have a splitting headache.

Ben came to his rescue. “You sort of stabbed her. Just a little,” he added hastily. “You woke up a bit when her hand was, y’know, in your side and you kind of freaked out. Pogo’s already patched her up.”

Oh. Five vaguely recalled a dream about the Handler, how she had dug her fingernails into his ribs. He supposed they did look pretty similar, with the blond hair and all. “Yeah, Diego might try to kill me.”

“Try,” Klaus scoffed, and then, “You’re right, he does look like death warmed over.”

“Tell the ghosts to mind their damn business,” Five muttered grumpily, trying to shift to a more comfortable position and wincing when it pulled at his side. A distracting ache was starting to build there, and in his leg under the quilt. His shoulder was not-quite-burning.

Ever observant, Ben checked his watch. “Timing’s right for another dose, ready for it?” Not bothering to wait for an answer, he reached over Five’s head to fiddle with the IV tubing. Almost immediately a fresh wave of numb lassitude swept over him. “Mom says it’ll make you tired.”

“You guys can leave,” he said hoarsely, eyelids already going heavy.

“Fat chance, we’re on babysitting duty.”

“Don’t need you to watch me sleep,” he scowled, not rising to the age jab only because the drugs were making it hard to get riled.

“Orders from Number One,” Klaus demurred, as if that had ever meant anything to him. He dragged himself up off the floor to make a show of over-conscientiously tucking the blanket around Five’s shoulders. “You’re not to be left alone until you can at least fight off, like, a determined moth.”

“He’s worried about the Commission,” Ben shrugged. “Thinks they might snatch you when no one’s looking.”

“Idiot,” Five said without any real rancor. “They can’t. Ten year grace period.”

“That’s what Allison said too, but he’s doing his leader routine. You know how he gets. Even insisted on being the donor for your blood transfusion, even though he already had some holes in him.” Ben shrugged and moved back to his chair, flopping down in it. “He’d be here himself if mom hadn’t made him go get some sleep.”

“Idiot,” he repeated, but his eyes were closing without his permission and the word came out slurred. His body felt like a marshmallow, or a cloud, drifting aimlessly. He could hear Klaus wandering around the room, footsteps like the quiet rumble of thunder. A squeak of unoiled hinges and soothing fresh air hit his face, the birdsong increasing.

The rustle of pages, and then as he was slipping back into sleep came Ben’s voice, quietly: “Almost equal in importance to number are the constructions by which we ascend from number to the higher levels of mathematical existence…”

Time elapsed in indeterminable ratios. It was impossible to tell if hours had passed or just a slow trickle of minutes, all snarled up in an uneasy garble of half-formed dreams. The old one, with the irradiated pit. New ones where he jumped and left a limb behind, or couldn’t jump at all, or Heimann solved the equation and they passed him off with a red ribbon to McGillivray, and there were hands on his neck—

There were hands on his neck—

Five jolted awake with panicked adrenaline crackling through his veins and he threw a messy punch, catching McGillivray on the nose. He needed to move, get up, where were Allison and Luther? McGillivray was grabbing his wrists and he was too weak, couldn’t get loose even as his arms shook with effort, twisting to try to throw him off.

“Knock it off, you’re gonna tear your stiches!”

Needed to jump, get away. Couldn’t without putting the others in danger, Handler would kill them without even thinking. But McGillivray was going to kill him, he had to—

“Jesus, use your brain already. I’m not the Commission!”  
And finally Five was fully awake, dragging himself out of the muddled confusion of the drugs, staring wide-eyed up at Diego’s face from the bed. He looked just as shocked, nose bleeding a little.

“You with me?” Diego asked carefully, not letting go of his grip on Five’s arms until he nodded. Diego finally released him, moving slowly as though half-expecting Five to attack him again.

Instead he immediately ripped out the needle from his hand, much to Diego’s dismay. He made a noise of frustration and quickly pressed a corner of the blanket against the bleed to help it clot.

“Unhygienic,” Five remarked hoarsely, sounding rattled even to his own ears. His breath was coming too fast and he consciously tried to slow it.

 “Shut up. Give me one good reason I shouldn’t just go tell mom to stick you again.”

“Pain meds were giving me weird dreams. Messing with my memory.” He frowned as the words caught in his strained throat, raising his other hand to touch it. “Were you…”

“No,” Diego said, a bit too hastily. Five eyed him and maintained an accusing silence until he caved. “I was just looking. I might have something that could help.”

“I’m fine,” Five said automatically.

“Sure, when you’ve got half your weight in painkillers pumped into you,” he pointed out sarcastically. “And even then you sound like shit. Can’t tell me that doesn’t hurt.”

Five grimaced but didn’t deny it. His silence was answer enough for Diego, who pulled out a little tube from his pocket. It was unlabeled and partially-used. “Look, I use this stuff all the time. Got it from a guy at the ring.”

“What is it?”

“Works miracles on bruising and swelling.”

“I didn’t as what it does, I asked what it _is_.”

Diego looked away shiftily, fidgeting. “Bit of this, bit of that. Nothing that’s not legal in the country it’s made in.”

“Delightful,” Five drawled.

“Oh, because you care so much about legality. It works, that’s all that matters.” Diego pointed a stern finger at him. “You need some sort of painkiller, and this numbs up pretty much anything. Try it or I’m putting you back on the IV.”

He snorted, casting a disdainful look that would probably have been more effective if he weren’t bed-bound. “As if you weren’t already planning on using it if I hadn’t woken up.”

“Yep,” Diego said, unabashed.

“Whatever, give it here.”

“No way, you’d do a half-assed job of it. Face it, you’re shitty at taking care of yourself. I’ll do it.”

“You’re starting to mother-hen as bad as Luther,” Five said in mock-horror, but the jibe missed its mark when the last word snagged and he had to work it loose with a harsh cough that burned his throat.

“You know,” Diego said, suddenly sounding so agreeable that alarm bells went off in the back of Five’s mind. “If you want, we could talk about Mom instead.”

“Ah.”

“Your choice, of course.”

“…Let’s not talk about Grace.”

“Thank you for your cooperation,” Diego said smugly, brandishing the tube. “Start with the ribs?”

Wordlessly Five tugged the blanket down and pulled the hospital gown aside. The area around the stitching was just as angry-looking as before. The bruising radiated in deep colors around the incision, and Five knew it was going to hurt like hell when the drugs started wearing off. For now it was dulling the worst of it, thought it was still tender when he prodded at the edge.

“Oh yeah,” Diego said knowingly, snapping on a latex glove that he had pulled from a different pocket. “That doesn’t look painful at all.”

“Shut it. What’s with the glove?”

“I wasn’t exaggerating about how much this numbs you up. I want to be able to feel my hand later.” He popped the cap off with a click and slathered a bit of the lotion on his fingertips. A vaguely minty smell filled the room.

It was slightly cold when Diego started smearing the lotion on the outer reaches of the bruising, working his way in methodically. He noticed a slight tingling sensation that faded quickly as it was rubbed in.

It was a novelty, having someone else tend to him. Five had gotten used to patching himself up in the apocalypse, all the various injuries and illnesses he had accumulated from rummaging through the rubble.

He’d mostly avoided trouble during his time at the Commission; his powers had given him enough of an edge. There had been a couple he hadn’t managed to jump away from—stray bullets or attackers he hadn’t quite seen in time. Headquarters had sent bandages and enough painkillers to get him back on his feet and finish the job. He knew they had a facility for when it was too bad for the agent to handle things themselves, but he’d never seen the inside of it.

So it felt uncomfortable now, to lay still while his brother finished up his side and moved on to the bullet wound in his arm, then to the abused muscles of his bad leg, the yellowing bruises on his face and wrists, a litter of other contusions he hadn’t even noticed before that had probably been picked up from either the explosion or the tests. He noticed a small bandage on his upper arm where the tracker had been—must have been removed while he was out.

 “I won’t do the burn,” Diego decided, tapping the spot on his own chest for emphasis. “Mom says it’s an infection risk.”

“How is it?” Five asked, curious. He hadn’t been in any state to actually get a good look at it before, and now it was covered with a thick pad of gauze. He could remember of the white-hot pain of it though, the smell of cooked meat. He wasn’t sure he wanted to see it.

“Be a hell of a scar. Got kind of a bad track record with explosions, don’t you?” Diego said thoughtfully. Five just shrugged—better than bleeding out in that hallway. “Right, one left. Tilt your head back.”

Diego sat himself at the edge of the bed by Five’s shoulder and slathered more lotion onto the glove. It took Five a nervy moment to convince himself to do it. When he exposed his neck, the vulnerability of it sent a surprising tightness into his stomach and his pulse picked up a little. The first touch had him flinching back against the pillow before he could get himself back under control.

Diego had paused, watching him warily. “Don’t have a heart attack, kid.”

“Don’t call me kid,” Five snarled automatically. His instincts were screaming with alarm. He curled his hands into fists at his side to keep from lashing out again. “Get the fuck on with it.”

“All right, all right.”

As Diego started applying the lotion in gentle circles along the column of his throat, Five kept his eyes averted and his breathing carefully modulated. The tension dug his fingernails into his palms. _Stop being stupid_ , he chastised himself. _It’s only Diego._ But it was impossible to convince his body that he wasn’t about to be strangled again. He tried to concentrate on the birdsong outside the open window, the breeze, anything except the person looming over him and the slide of hands on his neck.

“Allison and Luther have been pretty tight-lipped about everything,” Diego’s voice cut through the silence. “But they said that you had to play lab rat for the Commission, and your powers were giving you some kind of backlash. That right?”

“Yes.” He replied shortly, not really wanting to talk.

“And then you got pretty beat up in the escape. Bullets, bombs; sounds like you three were having a fun time.”  
“Do you have a point?”

“This looks personal.” Diego said bluntly. “Everything else can be explained, but there’s loads of better ways to keep a person contained than strangling them. Someone have it out for you?”

“It’s from the power backlash.” It was a weak lie, but Five really didn’t want to be thinking about this right now.

“Uh, no. I’ve seen this type of ligature mark before, someone was definitely choking you. Christ, you can still see the outline of their fingers.”

“Fine. Amazing deductions, detective.” Five replied through gritted teeth before cutting off when the lotion was massaged into most sensitive part of the bruising over the trachea. His hands clenched tighter, heart slamming wildly in his chest.

“Don’t worry,” Diego said wryly, and he was rolling his eyes when Five risked a glance at his face. “God forbid we ever actually talk about things in this family. Just tell me if we need to go hunting for this guy.”

Paddy’s rapturous expression as he watched Five struggle for air flashed through his mind, and Five pushed it down with a shudder. “No.”

“Is he dead?” He asked, voice casual as though he was making idle conversation, but there was a certain intensity in the undertone. It made Five remember that Diego had kept up the old Academy traditions for longer than anyone, doing his Batman routine. He might even have the highest kill count, after Five.

“Yes.”

“You kill him?”

“Luther.”

“Huh,” Diego mulled that over with a bit of surprise. “Guess the big guy is good for something after all. That’s all right then.”

“I’m telling him you said that.”

“Like he’d believe you.” Diego dismissed, finally pulling back and stripping off the glove. Abruptly the coil in his stomach lessened. Five let out a relieved breath and sunk deeper against the pillow, tucking his chin to his chest and forcing his stiff hands to unclench.

Diego stood and pocketed the tube, which looked empty. “The numbness should last about six hours or so. I’ll go see if my guy can’t get another tube, but the swelling should start going down soon anyway.”

Five swallowed experimentally and had to admit the lotion seemed powerful; he was already half numb. He didn’t bother to say ‘thank you.’ Diego wouldn’t expect him to anyway. “Not going to finish out your shift?”

“Luther’s not the boss of me,” Diego said promptly, and Five almost laughed. “Mom can keep an eye on you. Want me to have someone bring you a book or something?”

Five was a little surprised at his brother’s conscientiousness. He’d half expected the interrogation to continue until Diego was fully satisfied. Still, he wasn’t going to turn it down, and jabbed a thumb at the bedside table. “There should be paper in there. I’ll write a list for Pogo to bring me from the library.”

“A list?”

“I’ve got work to do.”

Diego sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Of course you do. What could you _possibly_ —you know what, never mind. It’s not my problem.” He rummaged through the drawers until he produced a scrap of paper and a worn-down pencil, tossing them both onto the bed. “I’m out, I’ll tell Pogo to come up here in a bit.”

The door clicked shut behind him and Five found himself alone for the first time in days. He luxuriated in the solitude for a couple minutes before laboriously pushing himself up. It took a fair amount of effort, even with the leftover IV drugs in his system and Deigo’s lotion blocking the vast majority of the pain. He still felt exhausted and weak, though better than before.

Besides, he was tired of sleeping. When the exception of the testing room sessions and their grand escape, Five had been mostly kept sedated over the past few days. It was past time to stay awake for a while. He rearranged the pillows so that he could lean back on them but still remain mostly upright.

What to start with? He wished fiercely that Vanya had allowed him to keep the sheet of equations from his older self. Those chunks of math that he hadn’t even begun to recognize—it was going to be hard to reproduce that. The Heisenberg equation, he remembered. It hadn’t been quite normal, a few extra partial derivatives. The Hilbert space basis hadn’t been receded. Maybe it was time for a review of _Uber Quantentheoretische_. He scribbled it down, and a few other titles as he thought of them. No doubt there would be copies in the library. There had been a lot of referenced books and articles that he’d never been able to find in the apocalypse—it was a miracle any had survived at all. It would be nice to be able to finally get his hands on them.

After a moment of hesitation, he also wrote a request for some basic mechanical engineering textbooks. If there was going to be a device, he was going to have to figure out how to make it. He’d never needed much in the way of engineering before, since all his previous research had been fueled by his own powers.

A few minutes later, the door opened and Pogo shuffled inside, carrying a tray that he set beside Five on the bed. A bowl of steaming soup and a plate of scrambled eggs beckoned at him, and Five barely paused to pass off the list before shoving a spoonful in his mouth. He thought he saw Pogo hiding a amused smile as he unobtrusively let himself out again, but now that he’d been reminded of the existence of food he was too hungry to care.

Even with the numbing he was grateful that he wasn’t trying to swallow down anything more solid. He hoped Diego’s lotion was as amazing as he thought it was for accelerated healing—he wasn’t looking forward to when everything started wearing off. By the time he’d filled his stomach and was contemplating licking the plate, Pogo was back with the first batch of books.

“I thought you might like this as well,” he said, passing over a large notebook. “Though I do hope you take it easy. You’re still recovering.”

His preferred methods weren’t exactly an option right now, Five conceded glumly. He wasn’t going to feel up to writing on the walls for a while. “Right, thanks.” He flipped open the first book, one he’d sort of read before. He was looking forward to reading a copy that wasn’t half-ash. Pogo turned to leave and a sudden thought made Five close the book again. “Pogo, one more thing.”

“Yes, my boy?”

“Dad’s journals, are they still in his office?”

“Ah,” he said with a smile, tugging his vest into place. “I wondered when one of you would start taking an interest in your father’s legacy. Yes, I successfully protected the journals from your brother’s…destructive inclinations.”

“Which one?”

“Master Klaus. I believe he had some lingering guilt over the unfortunate events with Miss Vanya, and wished to prevent any reoccurrences. Fortunately, he was always a distractible child.”

Five winced. That really had been a spectacular screw-up, though he supposed no one had known they had a dumpster-diving stalker at the time. It was also an uneasy reminder about the type of notes he would need to sort through to find any worthwhile information—what little he’d read had been neither kind nor loving. “How many are there?”

“Oh, hundreds. Would you like me to bring you a sample?”

Hundreds. It was a good thing he had a healthy amount of time before he had to start worrying about the Commission showing up again. “No, I’ll go down myself later.”

“Very well. Miss Vanya called while you were asleep, by the way.”

“Yeah?” He brightened. “Everything okay?”

“She sounds like she’s very much enjoying her time in Europe. Her current orchestra obligations will be finished in a few weeks, after which she will come for a visit. I told her we’d had a bit of fuss around here, but only the bare bones. I imagined you would dislike if she left early out of worry.”

“Good.” Five nodded in agreement, shifting slightly. The intravenous drugs were starting to wear off in earnest, and the burn was making itself known. Infection risk be damned, he should have used the lotion on it. “I’ll fill her in when she gets here.”

“Yes, and by then you may even be healed enough to make her believe whatever edited version you’re willing to tell.”

“Thank you Pogo,” Five said firmly, turning back to the book with a scowl.

Pogo took the hint and left, taking the empty tray with him. Five delved into reading. Research had always come naturally to him—he was a genius, after all, and had the work ethic to go along with it. But now that he thought about it, it had taken about forty years of study for his first time travel breakthrough, and now he had only ten to produce another out of thin air.

The upside, of course, was that now he wasn’t trying to work half-starved, splitting his attention between research and scrabbling for food in an empty wasteland. He had access to research materials and practically unlimited supplies, everything dear old dad’s vast fortune could purchase. He’d definitely never had the luxury of reclining in a soft bed while reading completely un-burnt books. Even with the nag of his wounds, it was a level of opulence he wasn’t going to take for granted.

Getting back into research felt somewhat good, he had to admit as he scribbled corrections in the margins of _Zeitschrift fur Physik_. He hadn’t been putting his brain to much use since stopping the apocalypse, sleeping the days away and not doing anything more taxing than a few idle probability calculations. Looking back now, it seemed like a bit of a waste.

Time slipped away. The food was a warm weight in his stomach and his eyelids were heavy, but the pain of his shoulder was enough to keep himself awake. He’d had to do that plenty of times before, waiting for marks to make an appearance. But actually, it felt more similar to the time he’d dealt with a concussion in the apocalypse. A stupid injury, tripping over the cracked ground in a building and braining himself on a shelf.

The concussion had been bad enough that he’d spent the night unsteadily walking back and forth, leaning on the wall to keep himself vertical. He’d been afraid to sit down for fear of falling asleep, and had stayed awake for twelve hours before he dared rest. No one to check in on him every two hours, after all. Not that he had been sure at the time what he was going to do if his condition did worsen.

“Five.” The chastising voice from the doorway made his head jerk up. Allison was scowling thunderously at him, leaning against the frame in a way that suggested she’d been standing there for some time without him noticing. She drummed freshly-painted nails against her arms in an agitated tempo as she took in the spread of books. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Convalescing,” Five said with as much innocence as he could muster.

“Working,” she corrected, “When you look like you got hit by a train.”

“Don’t exaggerate.”

“Fine. When you look like you had a _bomb_ blow up in your face and then a man twice your size tried to murder you. You just woke up, would it kill you to take a break?”

“I’ve only got ten years, Allison. No one else is going to figure it out.”

She huffed a sigh and visibly gave it up for a lost cause. Her low heels clicked on the floor as she entered, and he realized she was dressed too nicely just to be hanging around the house. “Going somewhere?”

“I want to see Clair,” she admitted, taking a seat in one of the armchairs that Klaus and Ben had left behind. “It’s not my week, but Patrick said it was fine.”

“Nice of him.” She looked…nervous, he thought, now that she was done disapproving of him. Allison was a superb actress but he knew the signs. Body language a little too carefully arranged, a certain tightness pulling at the corners of her lipstick. “Are you all right?”

“Of course, only you and Luther got hurt.”

There was a long pause while Five wracked his brain. This wasn’t really a conversation he was any good at. None of the Academy children were particularly emotionally adept—an alien thing, maybe, or a stunted childhood thing. Ben could be fairly empathetic when he put in a little effort, but the rest of them had the emotional intelligence of goldfish. Talking about feelings was _not_ one of Five’s strengths, but this whole thing was his fault, so he could at least put in a little effort.

“You’re upset,” he said, more bluntly than he’d intended. Well, good intentions couldn’t make up for decades of underuse.

“Klaus stole another of my skirts,” she complained irritably, throwing her hands up. It was a good act, and knowing their brother was probably even true. It was almost enough make him doubt himself.

But not quite. It was nerves he had seen in her posture. Anxiety, not irritation. “So you’re completely fine with everything that happened. Being taken hostage, this whole fiasco, you’re fine with it?”

“I’m not happy it happened, if that’s what you’re asking, but it’s over with now. I hear you’ve been having bad dreams, do you want to talk about it?”

He ignored the obvious subject change, mentally ticking through all the things that could be bothering her. Luther getting hurt, Five getting hurt—she’d seen all that before. Nothing to write home about at this point. Lingering guilt about being the first to be captured, maybe, but she hadn’t changed expression at all when he’d said ‘hostage’. What else was there?

All the soldiers she’d killed in the cell, he supposed. But no, she’d rumored plenty of people into shooting themselves in the past, it would be strange if it only started affecting her now. She’d actually been rather liberal with her use of her powers, considering her normal reluctance to use them. In fact, there had only been one time during the whole event that she’d put up a fuss at all.

“Oh,” he realized abruptly. “This is about Heimann.”

Bingo—she flinched and looked away. Five resisted the urge to sigh; he’d already tried his hand at this back in the doctor’s quarters and it had gone poorly, to say the least. Now Luther wasn’t there to get between them if they started to squabble again, so he’d have to step carefully.

“It had to be done,” he reminded her, pushing aside his books. “If he figured things out, everything we’ve done until now would have been meaningless.”

“I know,” she said, subdued, perfectly-manicured hands twisting in her lap.

“I was the one who killed him. You shouldn’t let it hang over you.”

“But I held him still for you. Luther and I, we’re…”

“Accomplices.” He finished for her, because there was no point in denying it.

“Murderers,” she corrected harshly. “Just because we didn’t pull the trigger doesn’t mean we aren’t.”

Be delicate, he told himself, toying with the edge of the blanket uncomfortably. What would Delores say? “Allison, no offense, but we’ve been killing since we were kids. Weren’t you something like ten years old when you did your first?”

She shook her head. “We were children, doing what dad told us. It’s different now. I made a decision, and now—” Allison hesitated, mouth tight with unhappiness, then let it out in a flood. “Now I get to go home, hold my daughter, and try to pretend that I’m not holding her with the same hands that held down a helpless old man.”

“Helpless,” he raised an incredulous eyebrow. “That asshole was going to get us killed.”

“I know—I _know_. But he didn’t have a weapon, and we could have…done something else. We should have found a way.” She banged her fist on the arm of the chair, eyes intense. “He’d surrendered, Five! He was cooperating. How can I touch her when I’ve practically committed a war crime?”

“You let me touch her.” There was silence for a moment as they both recalled the tentative hug Clair had given him when they’d first met. He’d never felt more uncomfortable in his life, but he’d patted her back precisely twice before hastily extricating himself. It had felt a bit like sacrilege, but he wasn’t going to mention that now. “Anything you’ve done, I’ve done worse. Hundreds of times, to people far more innocent and helpless than the good doctor.”

“You—”

“I never said no, Allison.” He leaned forward from the pillows and ignored the sharp ache the movement caused, forcing eye contact. “Not once. Are you afraid of me?”

She blinked in surprise at the sudden question and answered so automatically it couldn’t be anything but the truth. “No, of course not.”

“Think I’ll hurt your daughter, contaminate her? Do you regret introducing us?”

“No!”

“Then go catch your flight.”

She stared at him with her mouth slightly open. Five knew it wouldn’t be enough, not really. He’d walked himself through the same half-assed logic a dozen times since he left the Commission, and it still felt like an oil slick on his skin sometimes. But it wasn’t even like she’d done much of anything at all. He would have kept them out of it entirely if he hadn’t needed the extra hands to hold the soundproofing in place, but he’d handled the messy part at least. She’d obviously come to terms with their violent indiscretions during childhood; this was just one more little stain to be scrubbed out.

“Get up,” he told her when she didn’t say anything further. “Go home, hug your daughter, and tell her you love her. Things will feel better after that.”

“Did they feel better for you?”

He hid a wince. No, but he had a lot more blood on his hands, and it had been worth it. He didn’t have to like it, he just had to work through it. “I came home, didn’t I?”

She stood up and gave him a look that said she wasn’t fooled. “Did you? Five, you’ve spent the last few months holed up in here. Now you’re jumping right back into the apocalypse stuff. I get it, I really do—only you can figure this out.” Allison ran a finger along the spine of one of the books on his bedside table, and said plainly, “But I’m worried that ten years from now, you’ll be right back where you started.”

He looked away stubbornly. Honestly, who cared? He’d been doing this for decades already, one more and then he could figure out what to do with his retirement.

Abruptly she leaned over him and, careful to avoid the worst of his injuries, enveloped him into a hug. The warmth of it was dumbfounding and it abruptly became a struggle to think. Physical contact had never been a big part of his life even before time traveling. He wasn’t quite sure what to do, fingers twitching in surprise against the blankets.

“I love you,” she said firmly, and then in the same tone, “Get a hobby.”

That startled him into a laugh, and she released him. Five shoved down the bizarre mix of relief and yearning and hoped he didn’t look too much like a deer in headlights.

“All right, I’m leaving,” she said, patting her hair back into place. “I’m serious though, find a hobby or I’ll _assign_ you one.”

“Go mother your actual kid. Tell Clair hello from…uh, Uncle Five.”

“Yeah, that didn’t sound awkward at all. I’ll bring her with me next time so you can get better at it.”

Five rolled his eyes at her as she swept out the door. He wasn’t stupid enough to think everything was fine now, but at least she wasn’t going to skip the flight like she’d been working herself up to do. It was easier to get over things if you could throw yourself into something else, and he imagined parenting was as distracting as it gets. Allison would be alright.

He started to pull the nearest book back into his lap but had to stop and inhale carefully when the shrapnel wound burned at the movement.  The IV drugs were well and truly worn off. The rest of him was fairly numb, but Diego hadn’t treated that injury with the cream. Now that he was paying attention to it, it was quickly passing from the realm of ‘bad enough to keep him awake’ to ‘bad enough to keep him from working.’

Five leaned back into the pillows with a grunt of discomfort.  He maneuvered the tunic so that he could peel off a corner of the bandage on his chest and get a good look at the area for the first time. Diego was right, it was going to be a hell of a scar. The skin was blackened and cracked around the cauterization, the discolored area around it peeling unevenly. Some of the nerves in the area must have been burnt out completely, because it looked even worse than it felt.

Fucking Paddy and his fucking bombs—he really, _really_ should have made sure he was dead back in that ditch in London. Five had been assigned a few temporary partners during his time at the Commission, for missions even he couldn’t do alone. He hadn’t liked any of them, of course, but McGillivray was a whole different breed. Pulling the shrapnel out had hurt like hell, but it had been worth it just to metaphorically spit in his face.

He regretted that he hadn’t taken Paddy out himself, but to be honest getting beaten to death was probably worse than whatever Five could have managed to do in his condition. That stretch of time was hazy to say the least, but he could remember seeing the body on the floor and thinking it barely looked human. He’d seen Luther work over a punching bag before, and almost felt back for his former partner. Almost.

_Fucking Paddy_ , he thought again and gingerly prodded at his throat. Even his own touch raised a little spike of anxiety, and he was suddenly itching to move, to get away even though nothing was there. Heedless of the strain at his stitches, he swung his legs off the bed and hauled himself to his feet. Black spots flickered in his vision but passed quickly enough—just low blood pressure . The half-numbed ache in his leg was more concerning, and when he took a step forward it was with a heavy limp.

He wasn’t going to be running marathons any time soon. Now that he was up, though, he didn’t feel like crawling back into bed. He normally had a flawless internal timeclock but the events of the past few days had thrown him out of whack, so he hobbled carefully over to the half-open window. The angle of the light said it was late afternoon.

The fresh air hitting his face was reviving, though it didn’t settle his nerves. The hair on the back of his neck was standing on end, and even though he knew better he couldn’t help but scan the adjacent rooftops. There was nothing but pigeons. No glint from a sniper rifle’s scope, no red masks, no enemies at all.

Of course there was nothing, Five chided himself and turned resolutely away from the window. He had ten years of a mandatory truce to look forward to. He was being stupid.  Maybe a change of scenery would help. He’d been stuck inside this room for ages, even though he’d been asleep for most of it. He could go downstairs and raid the cabinets for something more to eat, or see if anyone else was still wandering around the house.

He frowned and looked down at his leg, taking another unsteady shuffle. Stairs might be a problem…or would be, if he were still tapped out. He hadn’t had a corrective jump since he’d woken up so that must be finally done and over with, thank fucking god. It had been a couple days since he had been able to do a regular jump without the beta blockers pushing him past his limits.

A quick pull, and he flinched with the expectation of cellular tear—but there was only the normal blue flash of light and he was standing next to the bed again. He breathed a sigh of relief and felt something in him relax.

Another pull, just for the comforting reassurance of being _able_ to without pain, and he found himself down in the old shed where he’d hidden Grace and Pogo during the attack. This was where he’d first tested his powers as a kid, jumping back and forth from different points in the main house, so it felt natural to wind up in the small dusty space again. Dim light filtered through the tiny cracked window.

As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he shifted to take in the area, absentmindedly cupped a protective hand over the stitches in his side when they ached a bit. It looked the same as always, filled to the brim with rusty tools. He felt a little more at ease surrounded by so many potential weapons.

There was a thump outside and he grabbed a set of pruning shears without any true conscious thought, ducking away from the window as well as his injuries would allow. He leaned against the wall in an uncomfortable half-crouch and listened intently. There was another thump, and then a shattering noise. Someone outside grumbled noisily, heavy footsteps loud in the gravel. Five suppressed a smirk and put the shears down, jumping outside.

Luther startled at his sudden appearance and another ceramic pot fell from the tall stack he was carrying, crashing to the ground. He stared down at it morosely for a moment before looking back up. “You should be in bed,” he said, aiming for calm but missing it by a large margin.

“Don’t start,” Five dismissed, squinting in the sudden light. “What’s with the pots?” Around Luther’s bulk he spotted a stack of what looked like bags of potting soil, and an impressive array of flowers in plastic containers. Luther’s hands and clothes were dirt-stained. “Should I start calling you Farmer John? I thought your thing was space.”

“It’s just something I’m trying out.” Luther said defensively, scuffed his foot in the gravel and narrowly avoided dropping another pot. “Thought it was time for a change.”

“You mean _Allison_ thought it was time for a change.”

“She gave you the hobby lecture too, huh.”

“I think she might actually rumor us if we don’t find some extracurriculars,” Five admitted. Luther grimaced and moved carefully around him, the pots swaying precariously. Luther was strong, but his balancing skills were apparently sub-par. Five started to limp after him at a safe distance, but hissed through clenched teeth when his body protested. He wasn’t sure how much time had elapsed between Diego’s visit and Allison’s, he’d been distracted by the books. At least a few hours, no doubt. He wouldn’t say no to a bit more of the numbing cream.

Well, he had alternatives. He jumped over to the bench that Luther was headed toward and sat down as smoothly as he could, surreptitiously pressing a hand against his stitches again.

Luther wasn’t fooled, eyeing him critically as he lowered the pots to the ground. “You really shouldn’t be moving around.”

“They say fresh air is good for recovery.”

“Who says that?”

“I read it somewhere,” Five lied bald-faced, not even trying to make it sound believable. “Doesn’t matter. Besides, you got hit in that blast too, and I don’t see you confined to a bed.”

“Mine were minor,” Luther said, sounding guilty about it. Rather than crowd Five on the bench, he sat himself down on the ground and pulled a pot closer to him. He tore open one of the bags and hefted it up with ease, pouring out soil into the container. He looked like he knew what he was doing, more or less.

“That’s right,” Five recalled. “You did this once when we were kids. Tomatoes, I think.”

 “Only for a couple weeks. They weren’t doing well, and Dad didn’t really approve, so…” Luther’s flushed a little, a slight pink high on the cheek as he trailed off.

Five didn’t pursue the topic. Unlike the rest of his siblings, he’d had fifty years to come to terms with how incredibly shitty Reginald Hargreeves had been at parenting. Luther had been the favorite, but it wasn’t exactly the prize Diego had always seen it as. Poor guy was still pretty hung up on it all, even though he’d made pretty good steps forward since Vanya’s incident.

“Here,” Luther said abruptly, shoving a plant into Five’s hands and interrupting his thoughts. “If you’re going to be out here, make yourself useful and hold this.”

The multicolored flowers bobbed gently in the breeze, almost aggressively cheerful. Five looked at them curiously, turning them this way and that. “What are these even called?” After a moment of silence he looked up to see Luther staring at him in careful assessment. “What?”

“They’re pansies, Five. They’re…they’re really common.”

Five shrugged uncomfortably. “Not a lot of flowers in the apocalypse. I don’t know anything about botany.”

“It’s not botany, it’s just gardening. Everyone plants these because they’re cheap and hard to kill.” He hesitated, then pushed forward, “Did you have a garden? In the apocalypse, I mean.”

“What? No, of course not. Nothing could grow there.”

“You were talking in your sleep for a while,” Luther said in a rush, very intently shoving a trowel into the soil and making a divot. “You were talking about gardens.”

“Oh, that.” Five pondered for a second on how to best disclose that you’d met God while half-dead in a way that didn’t sound absolutely nuts, and promptly gave up. There was precedence with Klaus but he didn’t feel up to going down that particular rabbit-hole. Reminding Luther that two of his siblings had nearly died while under his watch was not how he wanted to spend his afternoon. “That was something else, don’t worry about it.”

“Huh, okay. Anyway, it reminded me of the first time I did this and it kind of made me want to try again.”

  
“And also Allison bullied you.”

“And also Allison bullied me. Pass me the first bundle.” The plastic packaging was divided into multiple sections. He tugged at one of the stems and was dismayed when it snapped off. Luther hastily smothered a laugh, and Five shot him a half-hearted glare. “Sorry, sorry. I’m not used to you being bad at things. Pinch it from the bottom first and it’ll come out easier.”

Five followed his directions and the next section slid out in a neat chunk of soil and root. He gingerly passed it off and Luther settled it into the divot in the pot, using the trowel to put the misplaced dirt back over it. They went on in that way in silence for a few minutes, as the pot was gradually lined around the edge with pansies. He could tell Luther was working himself up to something though.

Eventually Luther said delicately, “Are you all right?”

“I won’t be doing cartwheels for a while, but nothing that won’t heal eventually.”

“Good, but I was talking about the, uh, the whole experience.”

“I’m going to get hives if I have another conversation about emotions,” Five announced, setting aside the empty packaging. “It’s over with.”

“I know,” Luther said, looking pained, like he also didn’t want to be talking about this. “It’s just that Diego said you were…jumpy.”

“I liked it better when you two were too busy trying to kill each other to gossip about the rest of us.” Five commented sourly.

Luther frowned at him but didn’t say anything further, passing Five a larger plant to hold while he filled a new pot with soil and dug out a hole. Lavender, Five thought. He’d never seen it in plant-form before but the smell was familiar from some of Allison’s lotions. He squeezed one of the purple spikes experimentally and the fragrance grew pleasantly strong.

Luther was trying, he reflected as he carefully worked the plant out of the stiff plastic. He’d been so earnestly concerned about Vanya’s happiness, and now with Five too. Doing hobbies Reginald would have disapproved of, trying to take care of his siblings—and not like a leader, but like a brother. In his own awkward way, Luther was trying.

The rest of them, too. They were all growing up, trying new things, becoming different people. Side by side, shoulder to shoulder, marching into the suddenly open future. They were going to grow old in this world together. This time, Five got to be right there with them. He’d be left behind if he wasn’t careful.

Allison was right. He really ought to start trying, too.

“I might be a little jumpy,” Five admitted quietly, as a sort of olive branch. The vulnerability made his skin crawl a little and he moved on quickly. “But you and Allison got us out when I couldn’t, and I’m going to make sure it can never happen again. Everything is going to be all right.” He paused and gestured ruefully at his throat. “Though I might be off neckties for a while.”

“We could get you real clothes,” Luther offered, not making eye contact. Five was grateful. “You don’t have to wear the uniform anymore.”

“Baby steps, Number One.”

Luther snorted and pushed the pot toward him. Five took his time, leaning from the bench in a way that wouldn’t aggravate his wounds. The sun was warm on his back as he planted the lavender, using his hands to mound the rich dark soil.

Later he’d get back to work. Later he’d delve into Reginald’s journals. Later he’d write line after line of equations, navigate the pure math of the universe, make it so no one could ever threaten him or his family again.

For now, he sat with his brother among the flowers, and gardened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is finally done. Thank you to everyone who showed support and patiently waited during my glacially slow updates. I hope everyone had as much fun reading as I did writing.


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